The Fighter's Saga
by Danny Barefoot
Summary: Three Shadowrunners have arrived in Calfree. Through love and war, their dreams and their grit, they are there to change the world. Adapted from a playthrough of Antumbra Saga by Cirion. Shadowrun and Goblin Slayer belong to the copyright holders.
1. PROLOGUE: Embarcadero

_A/N: This story is a continuation of 'The Fighter's Story' and 'Agency', in the Shadowrun/Goblin Slayer crossover section. It follows the recreated story of three ill-used adventurers from Goblin Slayer who have got on a great deal better in the Shadowrun universe. In a work of this length, reading earlier parts, especially 'A Fighter's story' would be useful, but hopefully not essential._

* * *

_"If America is a lunatic asylum, then California is the violent ward."_

_–Len Deighton_

**2052, six months since 'Agency'**

The Pacific Ocean was blue like a stone under the overcast sky, as the boat's faint, stinking trail stretched out from Seattle. The old tub belched and puttered to the pier and finally latched on. Within a quarter-minute, the lone passenger was heading down the concrete sea-road to the Embarcadero. His walk and his active eyes seemed half-tiger, half-wary old man, though he was visibly no older than twenty-three.

East of San Francisco, piers built in the gold rush extended from the Embarcadero sea wall, like arms from a starfish. The waterfront was littered with shipping containers, rope, and more unloading freighters than the Runner had expected. After independent Calfree had borne invasion from Tir elves, Pueblo Amindians and Aztlan, the devastation of LA by earthquakes, and the occupation of 'Frisco 'for security' by Imperial Japan, the historic Embarcadero was as unlikely a place for trade as it was for tourism. The Runner had heard that 'Frisco was a bastion of order in a lawless wasteland. Glancing at the distant span of the bridge, he was prepared to determine the truth with his eyes.

Closer at hand, the sculpture of a bow and arrow had been set in the waterfront. Cupid's Span had been covered, since then, with so much pornographic graffiti it might as well have been on fire. Welcome to the city of Eros. The Runner–Harry Fawkes–levelled a gaze again at the City, that was both searching and fixed.

Before the sculpture, flanked by two Japanese Razorboys in suits, was a woman in a black sleeveless jacket, mid-thirties, with the rainbow hair of a rocker and the eyes of a shark. Her bare body wouldn't have shown so many scars as the Runner's nakedness–he could see the thought in her smile–but both their eyes showed soul-breaking paths at their backs. And the unsettling, blood-tinged drives that still moved their flesh, like daylight vampires, as the woman waved her hand and the young veteran stepped towards her.

"Glad you've arrived–and safely, at that." Her voice was disconcertingly efficient, "I'm Kali. Welcome to Baghdad by the Bay."

-0-

There was a brief parley over the work Harry had come to do. Then they set off for Eclipse, Kali's new megaclub in San Francisco proper, in the back of her Ford Americar. A cheap, anonymous vehicle–Harry approved of the latter quality. There'd doubtless be a SK Bentley in Kali's motorpool, for contacts where she needed to put on a show. Though how many debts in blood and nyuyen were covered by that gleaming show, he could well imagine. After the crashing failure of the music magnate's Seattle megaclub, Antumbra, her mere survival, let alone revival, had been the acknowledged miracle of the year.

Kali seemed more occupied by assessing the young Runner than her own perennially precarious situation. There was a katana on his back, and a handgun on both hips. He had dressed for the heat, with breathable Kelvar pad-nanoweave street armour. A headband caught the sweat from flyaway, _insouciant_ hair, and his face retained a heartbreaking, boyish purity. But she could see the hard jaw, under soft cheeks; the death-grip resolve and nightmares behind large brown eyes. A fallen, killing angel. Facing the light that could never touch the shadows in his heart.

_"Poor Billy Bonney, you're only twenty-one...Pat Garrett's got your name on every bullet in his gun…" _She crooned, surprising herself with her musical whim.

"I go by Hotspur. No other names."

"Oh. I suppose Warrior died in Hong Kong?" Harry didn't answer that, "I know about fresh starts, _Hotspur_. We can't change what we are, but we change what we do. Adapt or die, in fact. Our chivalrous mutual friends–" 'Chivalrous Organisations' meant Yakuza, "–informed me that you're both fearless and reckless. I expect you to display the former and suppress the latter, for as long as our acquaintance lasts."

"If you didn't want a loose cannon, who might burn the city down but won't even die if he's killed–why hire me?"

"Perhaps…" Kali suddenly grinned, "…you appealed to my maternal instincts?"

She ran her fingers along Harry's jawline. Felt him go ominously still, and drew her hand back.

"Maybe your reputation from Hong Kong is exaggerated." She tutted, "A few stories from Seattle, as well."

Kali knew she was the one out of character. Her usual work, whether as Ms Johnson or with her nightclub and record label, was bold and unconventional but all business. Still, Warrior, or Hotspur, did have a reputation, and his face stirringly told Kali how he'd got it. Of course she'd mix business with a little fun, when this boy was rumoured to have defied the Yellow Lotus Triad for the sake of his girl they'd killed, and almost _beat them_. And when he'd taken an evening off from bedding half the young women in Hong Kong to romance a mysterious Prime Runner, who'd travelled from Seattle for one night with her love…after a lifetime in the music business, Kali knew star quality when she saw it. She also knew it was no defence from nameless death in a landfill or drug-den bathroom.

"It's been over six months since I stopped caring about reputation," Harry's voice broke in on her thoughts, "There's only one thing I care about, and we'd better get to it." He drew his PDA, opened a video clip. Kali's eyebrows rose. "You were her manager. Where is Susan Lei?"

The video was a live concert, four months ago, on the cavernous main stage and dance floor of Eclipse. Pillars of holographic light, gouts of fire. Rainbow neon under the crowd's platform heels and over their crazy-spiked heads–Kali knew there was a time to go subtle and a time to most definitely go loud. This was the first international TriD appearance of _SeeräuberJenny_; the novahot Kung Fu shadowrunner-turned-singing-starlet who had inexplicably vanished two months later. Kali had sold so many downloads off the resultant furore, she'd almost forgiven Fighter for wrecking Antumbra's opening night to launch her shadowrunning career, very nearly at the expense of Kali's life.

It was indeed Fighter, Susan Lei, who spun onto the stage and leapt through carbonated fog. Came down in low stance. a panther in lipstick, as the crowd roared. Slashed jeans showed off her gloriously trim thighs; concealer hid scars on both bare arms. Her ponytail was a glittering, warlike high plait. Shining breasts virtually spilt from a top she had (in fact) taken an hour to steel herself to wear.

_SeeräuberJenny_ moved like molten metal, with a master's control and a hero's heart in each step. Her bosom and stomach moved with her lungs, as she belted the songs. Her smiles were heart-bright and courageous, but fury, desire and sorrow blazed out what path she had taken to that stage. Her eyes were simply a woman who never stopped fighting and never stopped loving. Kali saw how Harry stared at the tiny image, like the bandit in hell and the spider's glittering thread.

After some conventional chromatic thrash numbers, _SeeräuberJenny_ launched into her signature piece. The arrangement had come some way since Brecht, or even Nina Simone, and the lyrics had been augmented with a plain verse about rape. But the crowd would remember how Susan Lei had ripped at her plait, until strands fell wild like Cassandra round her fervent eyes. She dropped to her knees, made her mouth a trumpet, and cried out all her doubt, despair and shame. And all her wrath, her power of will, her hope.

_"All the night through, through the noise and to-do_

_You wonder who is that whore lives up there?_

_And you see me stepping out in the morning_

_Looking nice with a ribbon in my hair_

_And the ship_

_The Black Freighter_

_Runs a flag up its masthead_

_And a cheer rends the air!"_

It did. Far as Fighter had come from Redmond, however, it wasn't a song of triumph. It was the fantastical, hopeless longing of a million helpless women called victims. A furious plead for the dream of freedom and peace that Susan was still denied, when nightmares of her first shadowrun pinned her to her bed. She beat her fist against her heart, smiled very bravely at the watching crowd, and sang out her hope for the world to the end.

_"And the ship, the Black Freighter_

_Disappears out to sea,_

_And on it is MEEEEEEEE!"_

-0-

Kali was as unhelpful as she could get away with, regarding her errant singer's disappearance. Fighter had walked into her office, only knocking her guards out this time, and put down 20, 000 nyuyen for Kali to start her off as a singer. Given their history, Kali had sent the Adept on a dangerously sensitive shadowrun to steal bio-engineered tissue from Shiawase, which she was fairly sure would get rid of her bad penny–her new operation in Calfree was as much Johnson and black-market work as music and entertainment. Fighter had delivered the goods, smiling guilelessly as a retriever, and Kali had given her a record contract.

"I offered her a contract two years ago in Seattle, actually, if she had seen fit to not wreck everything I'd built there and send me running from the Mafia. Your girl did teach me, or force me, to stand on my own. I have contacts, now, not backers; all that I've built here is mine. And I'm _almost_ always…" She grimaced at Harry, shook her head, "…an excellent judge of talents. I wasn't going to let an old grudge get in the way of business."

"Wasn't it your business to look for her?"

"Hardly. She's a capable adult. As for business, the fans would've drifted to the next novahot starlet in another three months."

Harry's hand clenched into a fist. Kali was unmoved, however, and she was his boss.

"Can you at least tell me why she did this? Expose herself on TriD, to all the enemies from all her shadowruns, wearing _that_?"

"_Excuse me_? The famous Hotspur doesn't want his Madonna dressing like his whores?"

Harry driven fist almost split the car seat. Kali stayed very still.

"She would never want to dress like that. Unless _you_ told her it was her job."

"Well, it was. Give the fanboys what they want, you know? Its better than kidnap and murder." Kali spoke rapidly, "Look, she told me that a chummer had told her, the Megacorps shape the world with money and media. Of course, she wanted the money–for some shelter in Seattle or something–but didn't you hear her? She wanted to put out a message. Respect, freedom, redemption, that sort of drek. I suspected at times she was a little dumb, you know? Not the sharpest monosword in the armoury."

"She beat _you_," Harry fired back, "And you have to be dumb sometimes, to be a hero like her."

Hostile silence descended, as the car swept across a bridge towards the city. Sun stained towers clustered ahead, windows gleaming like black metal, and rows of sickly palm trees swept past them. The route ahead passed through a checkpoint. Which meant–Harry deduced–there was a checkpoint on every open route into 'Frisco.

He studied the Japanese marines at the barrier. Squat, hard-faced men in black armour, inspecting passes with focused eyes. The ork driver of a cleaning van, clearly late for a job, snatched his pass back from a soldier who swiftly chopped him in the throat. The ork and his crew–all metahumans–were pulled from the van, and against a wall, by marines who screamed in their faces as they checked for bombs, guns or priors.

It wasn't Lone Star's idle brutality, but dedicated, professional hate. Harry had never seen anything quite like it. Cali, after two years in San Francisco, checked the time and hissed in annoyance at the delay.

The wide streets beyond the first checkpoint were far cleaner of trash, burnt out cars and bummers than Harry was used to. The stink of smog and diesel almost stunned him by its absence_._ There were houses with balconies he supposed were Spanish. Less poverty, more peace. Barely a single metahuman on the streets, and several passing patrols of marines.

"The Japanese like things clean as a Zen garden." Kali broke the silence, "They banned cars in the centre, brought back the trams and moved the metas to Oakland. We call that drekhole 'Orkland'. San Francisco's modern docks were there for years, but the Japancorps moved all the trade back to the Embarcadero. The marines certainly keep the peace, for the Japancorps, but they haven't driven the Azzies out completely. There's a lot of action in that quarter right now, just when they'd arrested some of my best Runners. Metas, so they won't be heard from again. That's where you come in, Hotspur…"

Harry showed no interest. Kali sighed in frustration.

"You are here for a job, not to chase down a stray singer. Still...an elderly ork, name of Orion, has been asking after Susan Lei as well. The last few days. A chummer of yours, or hers?"

"Not mine. And no ork would ever be Susan's chummer."

-0-

Conjured up from a derelict hotel with Shadow money, the Eclipse megaclub was an impressive beast. A grand stairway led up to the club proper. Wood-latticed screens along the entrance hall gave discretion for merchants flogging everything from medkits to machine guns. Other rooms were storage and safe hostels for transient Runners–some waiting for the soonest moment they could get out of 'Frisco, before Japan's hegemonic industrial-military complex caught them up in its titan gears. Runners and Johnsons got business done in the third floor barrooms. The ork, Orion, had been lingering there for days.

"Well, Hotspur, welcome to my little _casa_," Kali stood in the entrance hall with intense but quiet pride, "I believe there are only four operational establishments in the world where you can get a drink, a dance, a fake SIN and a cyberarm. Two of the others are in Tokyo. Speaking of a Californian SIN, before you go charging off–"

Harry was already striding hungrily towards the third floor.

The second floor was the nightclub. It was only seven in the evening, but there were no windows. In the hot-velvet, strobe-lit eternal night, the drunken, the desperate or the dedicated were already gyrating on the floor or knocking them back at a bar. Kali's old chummer DJ Omphalous was spinning out the beats of the latest Glitch Punk, and the crowd roared back the booming hook-line as they danced. Later, when there was really a crowd, the place would go mad like California dreams.

Instinctively, as in any crowd on a club or street, Harry scanned for the high dark, pony tail of the girl he had dreamt with of being a shadowrunner, in the Redmond Barrens. Searched for her ready smile through the shadows. She wasn't there, of course–there would have been pain if she had been, after what he'd done. But there was fierce, unbearable torment while she was _lost._ Any distance of world away–being _hurt_, in any way…his love he'd never held, his girl. He could still protect her, would not see her hurt again, and after two fragging years _he would not run_.

For two months, such thoughts had surged in Harry like a fever. But as he searched through the strobe-lit crowd, one girl on the dancefloor drew his attention like a poultice.

Working slim arms above her red hair, and flushed cheeks, she was going for it. Moving her hips like a snake, shifting her rich, bare thighs. Sweat gleaming on naked shoulders, above a green halter top, which enclosed breasts as finely shaped as the Taj Mahal…

Harry hadn't been with a woman for…a while. These were some of the less steamy thoughts that filled him for a quarter-minute, before the thoughts came that she wasn't Susan, he was a sick fool…and he'd seen that girl somewhere before. Redhead, redhead, with _eye-glasses_…?

As Harry moved closer, the woman stumbled on her heels in an especially exuberant spin. He managed to catch her, she laughed '_Willkommen_ to California!' and then his penny dropped.

"_Wizard_? Two years ago, the docks job, my last night in Seattle. You, me and _Fighter!_"

"…_Warrior?_"

Instantly sobered, she leapt from his embrace as if it were red hot.

It was none other than Ilsa Tresckow. Harry remembered her as so stiff and serious that he had almost overlooked her smoking hotness…but anyone could change in over two years. In any case, nothing mattered to him now but what she knew of _Susan_…before he could collect his thoughts, a greying dwarf trundled up to Ilsa with drinks.

"…love? Is everything okay?"

"Oh, entirely, _liebling_." Ilsa quickly knelt to kiss the dwarf's head and lay her arms round his neck, before speaking to Harry, "Allow me to introduce my boyfriend, Dr Henry Chambers, from the University."

Harry didn't think to ask _which_ university, stunned by the third crowning wonder that this unpreproposing little fellow should have landed a beautiful human girl roughly half his age. He could only suppose that the attraction was intellectual.

This was not the view of a drunken Fuchi _sarariman_ at the adjacent bar, who Harry heard complaining loudly to his buddy about metamonkeys seducing caucasian whores (The man was a blonde Anglo himself, but he was a quick learner).

At a nearby table, a dirty-blonde elf's expression turned from sullen to furious; flanked by a hulking ork and another dwarf, he stomped towards the sarariman, looking for blood more than apology. At the bar's other end, several Japanese (off-duty marines, from their bearing) straightened up, ready to keep the peace with fists.

Harry stepped in the path of the marines, and...his face burst into an earnest grin. His old-man eyes were suddenly bright as when he'd dreamt in Redmond.

"_Ohiyo, marino-san!_ Buy you all a drink?"

"White boy with a headband and a samurai sword." The marine officer looked over said items, grimly, "Who are you to buy us drinks, _Runner_?"

"Japanese swords, comms, cars–what choice is there?" Harry lifted his chin and spread his hands, perfectly balancing assertion and humility, "As for me, I have only enough skill not to disgrace the sword I carry–but a mere _Ronin_ must acknowledge the modern _Shinsengumi_."

The_ Shinsengumi_ were a historic unit of samurai swordmasters, whose exploits had been internationally broadcast to Redmond in the New Year's _Taiga_ drama of '48. Colonel Saito's elite Marines very much emulated the _Shinsengumi_; the officer, Lieutenant Arai, was a tremendous fan (A couple of his men were heartily sick of them, but held their peace). When Harry joked that the metas could learn from _Shinsengumi_ Rule Five: 'Those who engage in private brawls must commit seppuku', Arai thumped him on the back and bought him a drink.

"Watch yourself, _Ronin_," Arai warned Harry, with the air of a generous big brother, "There was a suicide bombing in the city this week; two more such attempts that we, the marines, were able to foil. And the monsters are always restless. Ask for me, if you get into trouble–if you have time to do so, before you are shot. _Aku Soku Zan!_"

'Swift death to evil!' was the motto of both the _Shisengumi_ and Saito's marines. Harry's smile vanished as he turned away, and his eyes changed. Like a visor going down, or a mask removed.

He noted that Dr Chambers had similarly headed off the metahumans belligerents, so all was well in the club. He modified his estimation of the academic and noted that Ilsa had hung back. As a human woman either party would have despised her. In Seattle, every goon had wanted to kill _somebody_, but San Fran seemed to be mired in a metaracial cold war, flaring to hot. Where any human or any meta was the enemy, for that alone. It was an unsettling prospect–but his job here was nothing but to find Susan Lei. Protect her. This time.

-0-

"Wizard. Do you know anything about Fighter, _SeerauberJenny_, where she is? Or this ork, Orion?"

"…Orion is here?" Ilsa's eyes widened behind her glasses, "_Bitte_, listen–!"

"Hold that thought. Stay in the building."

Impatient, Harry moved on to the third floor. Ilsa was a source, but the ork looking for Susan was a potential threat. He'd taken two months to get out of the drek he'd got into in Seattle, but that _could not_ mean he was already too late. He ground his teeth as he took three stairs at a stride.

The third floor was devoted to quiet drinks bars. Richly wallpapered and wood-fitted, like a wild west bordello, with soft piano music over hidden speakers and a fake dragon skull over the whiskey shelves. Several obvious Runners adorned with chrome or mystic tattoos glanced up from their biz. A cute brunette decker, in a bodysuit that showed her slim figure off, smiled at him demurely.

The wiry, white-haired ork was hunched at one end of the bar, with a headphone in one ear and a glass of water in hand. Harry carefully drew up a stool beside him.

"_Hoi, omae_." The artless smile, again, "Good job to stay hydrated in this heat. I'm guessing you're a Phys-Adept?"

"Indeed." The old ork's voice was harsh, but quiet, "It is always gratifying to meet with another follower of the Way. I perceive the truth, however, that your purpose is neither purely social nor amiable."

"…seems you can talk enough for us both, so I'll get to the biz. You've been looking for _SeeräuberJenny_. You know her name."

"Ah." Orion's beady eyes flicked towards Harry; he set down his glass, "Logically, I would not still be seeking that inimitable young Fighter, if I knew where she is. So, I suppose you wish to know why I am searching for her?"

"If you'd be so kind." Harry's thumb was on his sword-guard, and he wasn't smiling.

"It may be…" Orion sighed, and raised his glass again, "…that I am seeking to kill her."

Harry drew and struck in one swoop, fast as a hawk. Orion examined Harry's glare of righteous fury, rather than the length of dikoted, razor-edge steel between his drink and his tusks.

-0-

"Your skill is sufficient…for you to perceive that you could never defeat me. You retain enough self-control that you did not attempt to strike home. And yet you struck…"

"–because I LOVE HER!" Harry's voice held nothing back, "Susan Lei, my Fighter! Understand that, _trog_! You will not touch her again, if it takes my life!"

The bar was silent. The young decker hid her face; the veteran Runners kept hands near their guns. Like the desperadoes who had merrily blasted each other into oblivion for a notable portion of California's history, Orion and Harry watched each other's eyes.

"I am sorry," Orion finally whispered, "For what you both endured. I was Susan's teacher and comrade for the best part of a year. I believe that she missed you every day of it, and I perceive that her choice to wait for you was not without reason. Although I will break your sword between two fingers, if the word 'trog' passes your lips again."

"_You_ were her chummer? Why geek her?" Harry had almost wept at Orion's words, but his sword was still up, "Business? Revenge? She killed ork gangers in Seattle, but they were going after her–!"

The lights in the bar suddenly flickered. Harry saw Orion wince away from his earpiece–his sensitive hearing was evidently being assailed by a rant from the unseen decker who had his back–and the barman had finally remembered about calling security. Harry sheathed his sword, placated the barman, then turned determined eyes back to the ork.

"Undoubtedly, your appearance on the scene stems from _SeeräuberJenny's_ disappearance, after that striking broadcast?" Nod, "I, also, was drawn to Calfree by a certain video."

Orion placed his PDA on the bar. It was jerky footage from a Comm camera, shot by a bystander during a incident in San Francisco's Mission District, two months ago.

It was the City's oldest district, and the clearances had met less success. More wrecked cars, more street art, more metahumans; and it seemed like most of them were heading down Liberty Hill. Trolls and elves, orks and dwarfs together, shouting Our Home, Our Streets. The newsfeeds had called it a gang-led riot (Orion told Harry, afterwards), but Harry saw few visible gangers and fewer weapons. Apart from the compact, sleek H&Ks held by the black line of approaching marines.

And Susan Lei was between them. Stunning in the makeup and glittery top of a starlet. _Beautiful_, beyond Harry's dreams, in her motions, words and courage. She was shouting to the marines, like a sergeant in high-heels, or a teacher with errant children. There was no clear or imminent threat. They were miles outside their operating procedures and terms of engagement. They needed to wait for orders and backup, let the metas blow off steam. Act like soldiers, not frag it all up.

She could speak Security; Harry didn't know where she'd learned it. Two years ago in Redmond, on their first shadowrun, he'd watched trog gangers throw her down and almost rape her in front of him…but Orion, the ork, said he'd been her chummer. It sank into Harry that he had lost over two years of life with the woman he loved. Who he'd longed for without even knowing her real glory. Tears rolled down his cheeks, as he grinned to see her. Orion's eyes were ominously dark, but they didn't exist for him.

On the video, the squad of marines was wavering. The officer screamed incoherently at first Susan, then his men; but the marines knew _SeeräuberJenny_ had been Fighter, the shadowrunner. Most of them had downloaded her song. The shameless ferocity of beauty and courage stopped them, as she pressed a hand between her breasts and cried out. Moreover, they _were_ outnumbered by the swelling crowd of monsters behind her. Several of the older and cannier marines, as well as the younger starstruck ones, had already stepped back, when Susan turned to the metas. She pleaded with them to disperse and go home, before a company of marines rolled up and killed them all. This wasn't a fight they could win.

A number of metas slipped away into alleys. But the body of demonstrators were outraged at a squishy woman, dolled up like a princess, telling them when or how they should demand their freedom. As Susan shouted at a big ork in the lead to go home to his family, with her arms spread–he shoved her down, in the gravel, and told her to get out or get trampled.

It had been two years that felt like ten since the beating and assault. Harry couldn't understand what he saw next, until Ilsa told him that serious trauma was like addiction. Months of victory, then a trigger, a firm push...then the tiny, undying tension you had almost learnt to ignore blew everything to drek.

He couldn't see Susan's face, as the crowd loomed above her. He saw her body twist, and a high-heeled foot come round. He knew the ork it struck in the neck would not get up. A troll in gang colours swung at Fighter; she flicked the blow aside and hit back. Harry still couldn't see her eyes, but knew the nightmare that had been fixed before them. She kept striking, as the marines started to fire into the crowd.


	2. PRELUDE: Legion of the Lost Ones

_If the home we never write to, and the oaths we never keep,_

_And all we know most distant and most dear,_

_Across the snoring barrack-room return to break our sleep,_

_Can you blame us if we soak ourselves in beer?_

_When the drunken comrade mutters and the great guard-lantern gutters_

_And the horror of our fall is written plain,_

_Every secret, self-revealing on the aching white-washed ceiling,_

_Do you wonder that we drug ourselves from pain?_

_We have done with Hope and Honour, we are lost to Love and Truth,_

_We are dropping down the ladder rung by rung,_

_And the measure of our torment is the measure of our youth._

_God help us, for we knew the worst too young!_

_Our shame is clean repentance for the crime that brought the sentence,_

_Our pride it is to know no spur of pride,_

_And the Curse of Reuben holds us till an alien turf enfolds us_

_And we die, and none can tell Them where we died…_

–_Gentlemen-Rankers, Rudyard Kipling_

* * *

**Eight months earlier (Harry 'Hotspur' Fawkes)**

Harry had taken a month to return to Seattle. The hijacked fishing boat from Hong Kong to the Philippines. A slow boat to Japan, and the Yakuza smuggling flight he'd killed to pay for. Going to ground every third step, like Mister Wolf; never moving in the open, never lying down in peace. Half-expecting, almost hoping every morning, that the Triads would catch up before nightfall and the nightmare would end.

Roller, Fyrefox and Alison Douglas were dead. Owens, the other survivor, had split in the Philippines. Harry heard nothing of him again, alive or dead. He'd always hope the elf shaman had vanished into some wilderness of peace. They'd never got on well, but they'd been chummers. The crew he had fought by and slept by had been more than his kin. Two years together, they'd plundered and killed enough for a dozen plain lifetimes. He'd laughed with them, bought girls with them. He'd led them into death and left everyone but himself to die.

Death by a myriad of knives was the Triad curse on traitors. Sweating on a bed, or crouched in a corner, Harry felt the knives of the friends he'd failed. He saw Owens' bitter eyes, through the night. Douglas, brave and deathly–he wished he'd held her hand to the very end. The dead eyes of Kindly Cheng, the Triad boss who'd crushed them all, regarding him like an insect under glass.

And Susan's eyes. When he had seen her hurt. When he'd left her, left Redmond, full of TriD shows and dreams and drek. Their eyes would watch his death, and he knew what his eyes would be when he died. An idiot on a dirty floor, more fragged than he could even understand.

With death in every Chinese face on the street, and in every other face that would expose him for the bounty…in the world-squeezing grip of the Triads and as close as the gun in his hand…alone and helpless, Harry found he could not die. He was dead already; Douglas had given her life to fake his death. For her beloved sake, without childish, idiot dreams, _there was a chance_…that he could get to Susan Lei, somewhere. Be there for her, _somehow_. If only her smile touched him, like an angel's feather in the darkness…maybe, he would live again.

He'd have to change his street name. Fyrefox's literary musings had touched on Harry Hotspur, the fearless, feckless knight who would 'leap, and pluck down honour from the moon'. Harry Fawkes had never asked how that had worked out for the ancient sword-swinger, but 'Hotspur' came to him easier than Warrior had. A memorial for his chummer, though he'd remember them as long as he Ran, or lived.

Before Owens vanished, he'd said only that he was done with shadowrunning. Even after the fall, Harry couldn't understand that. Nobody left the Shadows. If he wasn't robbing Megacorps, he was nobody; if he wasn't looking death in the face, he was a bum. That rush-drunk, idiot tenacity was his only virtue. Even if it fragged up all he touched–he surely couldn't keep Running for long, before he was dead. And before that, the Shadows that had swallowed Harry Fawkes would hear the name of Hotspur.

-0-

His first job back in Seattle, as the unknown and penniless green Runner Hotspur, was to cut off the pinkie of a guy who owed the Fixer money. Harry went to the flat and emptied his Browning into the guy's third-rate excuse for a bodyguard. The target himself was a slobbering, insensible chiphead; his girlfriend, however, laid a baseball bat across Hotspur's head. He stayed conscious, got away with just knocking her out, and did what he'd been paid for. In the corridor outside, his legs suddenly gave way. He had to crawl back, with trembling hands, and throw up in the flat's bathroom.

He'd done things he'd never dreamt he'd do in the Shadows. He'd also closed Runs that had beaten all but his wildest fantasies; unbelievable defences and targets, hundred-thousand Nyuyen paydays. But the world-shifting prototypes or researchers went to the Corps, the money had gone to Happy Valley and the drek remained. This was shadowrunning; the right job for someone like him.

What really made him angry was that he'd never been so afraid he would die. Fear of seeing his _chummers_ down, like Susan, had gnawed him from the start and he'd fought it. Then he'd watched his chummers die, he was alone, and it had done something to him…no. He had to be hard, he would fragging well fight his fear again.

He kept tramping for work through the grey, oil-scented alleys of Seattle, through the trash and garish billboards. His hometown, the birthplace of the shadowrun, where he and Susan Lei had lived and dreamed. They'd slid down the gutter like skaters, she'd laughed as she chased him…he'd been shot in the gut on their first Run, she'd been beaten and hurt. Nothing had gone right, or been easy…but she'd found him, one night in Hong Kong. Mysterious, unstoppable; miraculous as a midnight sun and sweet as his last pure dream. She was _somewhere_, he was still alive…and his mother was in Redmond. But for her safety, he couldn't even look at her in the street. He stayed out of Tacoma, and checked every cab he took–vanished, if the driver was Chinese.

Even wandering, he must have seemed a beacon of purpose; Hotspur found a street-level kind of crew gathering round him. A grubby, wild-eyed dwarf Rat shaman. And a pinched, staring junkie with a rattling Fichetti, swearing he wanted to be a Runner even more than he wanted a fix. Harry honestly liked the kid and readily called him chummer. They took a job to clear some two-bit gangers out of a drugs squat…and it went down smooth as champagne licked off an elf girl's stomach. Hotspur's grin was wide as the greenhorns on their first Run, who stared in astonishment at the bodies and the nyuyen.

With another teammate–Izanami, a determined and stunning young Redmond chica, who Harry resolved to watch himself with like _iron_–their next job had been to clean up a ghoul-haunted cemetery. They'd geeked the pale, loping monsters with sword and handgun–but the junkie had surged too far ahead and died on his second Run. It'd been a miracle he'd survived his first–but that made him a Runner. Hotspur had to believe that getting torn by teeth as a shadowrunner was better than ODing on a bathroom floor, in defiance of what his eyes had seen. It hurt, but he wasn't going to stop.

Their third Run was for a portly, cheerful Johnson who broadly insinuated that he knew Hotspur was Warrior. But it was a serious job that paid. A transport convoy would be ambushed outside Seattle, the guards would move to engage. Hotspur's team would drop in behind them by rotorcraft, seize the package in the central armoured Roadmaster, then make a rotorcraft exit. Transport would be provided, and an advance to hire a decker. Harry leapt for the job; he would have _begged_ if required.

Three nights later, he was standing on an open highway past midnight, having thrust one guard through the throat and slashed another to the teeth. The decker was working at the maglock on the back of the big Roadmaster, by the light of burning escorts. The Rat shaman stared down the road, at the bulk of the guards pouring fire into the Runners on the ambush team.

"Oy. Where's_ their_ rotorcraft?"

"_Decoy team_, omae." The decker quipped, "Better Runners than us, from the ambush, but…not lucky. There, but for the grace of…whatever."

The shaman kept staring.

"Shame." He muttered, "Got a chica with them."

Faster than his own thought, Harry dashed. Three steps. He stared with all his might through the fire-glowering darkness–a struggling figure with long dark hair. It didn't look like Susan, but _would he know_? _If it was_…? A bullet spanged off the armoured truck, lodged in his vest. He dropped down, wincing, still staring. Izanami crouched beside him, handgun poised and dark eyes bright.

"On your word, Hotspur."

"Wha–? Serious? No!" The shaman gabbled, "Count the helmets! Suicide!"

The decker popped the lock, got the package. Finally, Hotspur turned away. He ordered the shaman to summon some cover–a devil rat spat venom at the advancing guards, as the Runners ran. Hotspur lifted a silent Izanami onto the pilotless rotorcraft; stared back. He could see nothing left of the decoy team, through the darkness and smoke.

He had a team; he could not see them die again. Susan might have been lost to him since he left her in Seattle. Lost in shadows like the depths of space, beyond his reach…

No. He had made war on an international Triad, he had fought two years to pull his teammates out of fire–every half-good thing he'd half-done had been for Susan Lei. His love he could never touch, couldn't ever save…the girl he had dreamt with, in the Barrens, of love and immortality. Finding her and loving her were the last meanings his life had left.

Yet they'd set up a dead drop mailbox, that night in Hong Kong. He could have messaged her, again, he'd stayed up past midnight with his finger hovering…but not yet. When Hotspur had found his feet and made a name…when he'd done _something_ she'd be proud of. And when he was sure that the worst thing, for him and anyone he was with, wouldn't happen…and then it did.

Warrior was dead, but Hotspur couldn't have lived, couldn't have worked, without putting about what Runs he had closed. Perhaps someone made a connection, perhaps the Johnson let it slip; perhaps Kindly Cheng had never even been fooled by the fake body in Hong Kong. Harry _felt_ so changed, he'd done little to disguise his appearance.

Then there was a street in Everett, a bike roaring past. Two hard Chinese faces, a camera-eye flash. And that was it. Harry knew they knew_ he was alive_, and everything went down like a house of cards.

-0-

Before nightfall, the Fixers and Johnsons knew and there were no jobs for Hotspur. As he left the last nightclub, the Johnson reached for his PDA; Harry called his team and told them to run. His senses were on razorwire, all the way through the alleys to the safehouse–but as he opened the door, he heard the crackle of magic. The click of chrome blades, behind.

Two assassins, one Triad Mage. Serious killers–but they'd gone in for the bounty fast, without backup. Harry's Ki was a shield against magic, and he'd killed tougher killers in Hong Kong. He'd lost count of his dead before the war with the Yellow Lotus, that had left him alone and deadly.

A manabolt scorched him, a cyberwhip carved his arm, before his sword slashed through chrome and flesh–but there were always medkits. All they couldn't heal was nerves; still steel, but taunt and fraying. And they wouldn't bring back the dead Triad orks round his boots, or anyone else.

Izanami and the decker had vanished. But the Rat shaman had been cornered in a bus-station toilet. Harry heard the next day, he had been fried by magic–he hoped the little guy had spilt all, instead of holding out under torture. Not that hoping, or anything else, would do him any good now.

_I'm sorry, Susan. You're the best woman in this fragging world. You can find a better man than a toxic, hopeless drekhead._

He sent the message in a filthy basement bar in Redmond, halfway through his first glass. He'd promised to be her hero, no drugs or women, he'd hoped…he couldn't hurt her. A team-killing idiot could not be with her. All he could do for her now was something to make it impossible he should stand in her presence again.

For the first time in over five months, he picked up a girl, a cute Hispanic ork, in the next bar. As if rushing to cut off his toxic self from Susan Lei, beyond hope of heaven.

"Tell them who I was and where I went," He gasped into her neck with kisses, on the messy floor of her room, "They won't hurt you. I'd never want them to hurt you. I never wanted…"

"Oh, slot it, handsome." The ork chuckled, pushing his head down to her breasts, then between her thighs, "Just love me."

Harry left her room before dawn. He might've drowned himself in drugs and synthol that night, hurting only himself, but he had to keep moving and survive. He could head to Calfree, but the Triads were strong there. the Triads were everywhere. He had settled on Kansas City, when the van screeched into the curb behind him. His legs were charged ready with Ki, he whipped out his sword and ran.

He should have died, again–there were just too many bullets in the air. But a spirit of lightning suddenly tore through the gunmen in the van, and a welcome Haste spell lit up his body. Several busy seconds later, he was stood on a ruined street among yet more Triad bodies–looking at Izanami's lovely and fearsome eyes. Her hands were still smoking, she had switched her black jacket for a halter top, and the dragon tattoo running from breastbone to stomach told him who she was.

"It appears you need some protection, Hotspur. I belong to the _Shigeda-gumi_; my mission was to assess you. Though you were not everything I expected, and unless you would rather run on and die, I will relate your worth to my _Oyabun_. Graciously omitting the part where you slept with that trog slot."

-0-

Mostly as a middle-finger to those filthy Triad ruffians, the Yakuza extended Hotspur protection, and an exclusive retainer. There were a few leg breaking jobs, but it mostly meant clearing street gangs out of rotting apartment blocks in the Barrens. Harry would have been proud of such jobs, if he hadn't known the Yakuza would move in before the bodies had cooled. Beating on the slum families for money they'd already paid the street gangs and buying their children for _Bunraku_. It was the Barrens, it was shadowrunning, it was the work that a teamkilling failure did.

The _Shigeda-gumi_ were a New Way, progressive clan–a woman, even the _Oyabun's_ granddaughter, like Izanami, wouldn't have otherwise got far with them. While they sincerely professed shadowrunners to be dishonourable curs, there was an almost childish fascination with these latter-day _shinobi_ as well. Harry was obliged to drink a lot of whiskey, and tell a lot of stories, while grinning, suited Yak footsoldiers pounded his back and called him their _Ronin_.

Harry found that selling his soul wasn't so bad. When he'd been green and stupid, he'd wanted to do good in the shadows, of course. But what he had always desired most–what had driven him to the Shadows of Hong Kong and its brothels, even into war with an international Triad, _perhaps_–was to be renowned, respected and loved. He ate the Yakuza's flippant praise of his work, laughed along, with a surface shine in his eyes. Beneath was void; a Runner too tired to run, without a single dream left.

"You only look alive in combat," Izanami admonished him (Late in the evening, after the other Yaks had slid insensibly under the bar's mahogany table), "And they don't even pay you what they should for your jobs. You should share sake with us; become a full member. Then we can gather a crew, take serious jobs. Take the clan, one day, or set up our own. The two of us could take this city, and wade through the blood of those Chinese trog-lovers!"

(Harry regarded meta-racism as so senseless that it didn't greatly offend him. He hated lawmen, gangs and rapists, and got on well with everybody he could.)

"Izzy, love–" she smacked his face, "–_Izanami_, I'm a _gaijin_. New Way, Old Way, _no way_ I'd get far in any Clan. They'll probably sell me to the Triads, as soon as they get a reason."

"So, you can't sit still!" Izanami leaned forward, eyes flashing, "As if the storied Hotspur could ever pause or baulk at danger! You could cut your way to power, as you cut through the Lotus! We could change the Yakuza, finish what grandfather began, so that a _gaijin_ or a woman can truly seize everything they might dream!"

"You're a dreamer, Izanami." Harry put down his glass and looked her unsteadily in the eye, "Why don't you do something yourself about what you want?"

With a flushed face and impatient growl, the Yakuza woman launched her lips at his. Harry returned her whiskey-tasting kisses for some minutes, before they came to whatever sense they had left.

Sleeping with an _Oyabun's _beautiful granddaughter would have been a picturesque end to the story of Hotspur, but a certain one. In fact, if Izanami had been a prostitute her oath-brothers would still have been outraged at any pure Yamato woman submitting to a poxy Westerner. They'd offered their _Ronin_ any number of trafficked Filipino or Malay girls, all with the sad and earnest eyes of lost hope–Harry hadn't availed himself. In fact, he never had any woman after the ork girl in Redmond, in the months before his arrival in Calfree.

He had thrown away Susan's forgiveness, lost hope of her smile forever–but he learnt bitterly that he could not stop wanting. He wanted to hear all she had done; her triumphs, scars and regrets. He wanted to watch her eyes shine, as she swept through a Kung Fu form or comforted a child. He wanted to walk a street with her, without words, once more…or if she called him a lying idiot, _it would be her_. The girl he had dreamt with, his lost dream.

Izanami had chosen her street name (her real name was Kaname Kato) for the Shinto goddess who had created the world with her husband, before becoming queen of the underworld (And transforming into a hideous monster; Harry silently hoped her story wouldn't get that far). She was a beautiful, strong-willed woman; Harry found he talked with and fought beside her with astonishing ease. But if he had let love draw him into her story, Harry knew he would have lost his soul for good.

Months passed. Synthol had never really been Harry's poison, but it became a habit. One evening, he wandered into a Redmond dive and Mr Jackson walked in after him–the old ex-shadowrunner from his old neighbourhood. The dwarf feigned to not recognise him, but launched into an unprompted spiel over his can, about comings and goings in Redmond. That was how Harry found out that his mother was running a shelter and counselling centre. He stared at the ceiling, a puzzled, sad look in his eyes.

"…yeah, who would have thought it?" Jackson drawled on, "A lifetime of waitressing and dishwashing, in drekky joints much like this. Then a mysterious shadowrunner–a female Adept, I heard tell!–plonks some cash down, and now Sharon Fawkes is the best thing that happened to Redmond this decade. She's working like a horse, and I hear she never gives up a single soul. They mean well, these hooding Runners…but I've seen it before. Running is feast or famine–half-a-year sometimes, when the Corps just have better stuff to do. Charity needs steady money, and not a little. Or everything goes, and those women will end up on the street."

Jackson chugged his synthol and sighed theatrically. He had no idea where Susan was. Hotspur didn't bother asking Jackson why he didn't do something for the shelter himself. He had occasionally wondered what had reduced the ex-Runner to a synthol-soaked, underpaid security guard, but now he didn't need to ask. Chip truth, he was an ex-Runner himself. The thought made him shiver in his seat.

-0-

He saw Susan's concert a few days later–watching TriD with a whiskey bottle and his Fichetti before him. _SeeräuberJenny__. _He heard her song.

The tenth time, he was still staring; he hardly believed it was her. If she wanted money for her shelter, why wasn't she shadowrunning? When had she learnt to _sing_? Why expose herself to every Corp and gang she'd fragged over, in that outfit? And why was she a million times lovelier than any other girl he'd ever see? All he knew was, he couldn't go to her; a failure, still hunted by the Triads, still the Yakuza's chained dog.

Harry did send his mother some money, through a decker friend of Izanami's; if the Triads had made the connection, the issue would have been hellish. But when the bolt fell–a fortnight after the news that _SeeräuberJenny_had vanished in Calfree, without trace–it was from an unexpected quarter, as always.

The _Shigeda-gumi's_ leadership were sent photos, of Harry and Izanami. The picture where they merely kissed hadn't even had to be doctored–though even Harry's Yakuza chummer, who slipped him a warning, wouldn't believe that they had been.

Harry found Izanami with her decker friend, in a furious row.

"…_Onee-san_, any decker could tell those pictures were faked," The bespectacled techie pleaded, "But the _Oyabun_ doesn't care. The look of the thing, the loss of face! He's going to sell the _Ronin's_ life to the Triads, and if we speak out against his will, the dishonour–!"

"Frag him! Frag his honour! Frag the fragging _New Way_!"

She turned savagely towards Harry, as he stepped forward–then her snarl was silenced on her open lips. Something she had only glimpsed months before, in Harry's eyes, was shining.

"It seems like I need to redeem myself. Lone yakuza did that with suicide charges, years before the _kamikaze_. Except, I can't die yet–I'm asking you to come with me, Izanami. The two of us, for honour, against every Triad in Everett, isn't suicide. It'll be _legend_."

"Yes, but not for you." The Yakuza woman fiercely raised her chin, "I mean to be the first woman _Oyabun_, I wanted us to conquer America together, and I wanted _you_. But I will not be called 'some girl that Hotspur screwed one time'! I will not forgive those Triad vermin for sullying my honour."

In her white knuckles and shaking eyes–Harry saw something of Susan's pain. Only a trace, but it still made what he had to do quite easy.

The Yakuza decker, Hanzo, who'd grown up with Izanami like a brother, decoyed off some Yellow Lotus from their forward base in Everett; enough that Izanami and Harry wouldn't die within seconds. The blockhouse's doors and cameras fell to Hanzo as well; to not only get them in, but show the _Shigeda-gumi_ what they'd done. With Mitsuhama at their backs, Yakuza deckers were the underworld's best. Harry thanked him, as he tied on his headband. Gripped the dikoted katana he did not mean to lose in this fight.

-0-

He walked through the front door. Izanami strode at his side. A dozen Triad gunmen stared, before fog flew from her fingers. Hotspur flung one grenade–dropped another and _kicked_. He fired as he ran, Haste flashed through him with the blasts–a Triad grenade burst at their backs, as screams and bullets filled the air.

His sword flashed out. With the death in his heart that he should have died, Hotspur ran low like a wolf, fast as an _Adept_, into the clearing mist. Bloodied gunmen and metas were running like rats for the corridors–taking cover, as they aimed. As Triad hitmen and officers rushed in from their rooms.

Triad thugs lunged in, both sides. The blade flashed a level path, back and forth–foes fell. Cordite burnt in his lungs as his heart blazed. He had to live; find Susan. He would die here, for all the drek he'd done. Bite down the pain, as bullets clipped his limbs. Twist his blade for force, across bodies, cut down a staggering dwarf; then there was nothing but death and the fight, and he was grinning.

Izanami flung acid bolts to down an ork shaman. Hotspur ducked into a corridor, as they moved in deeper–a gunman was there, that he hilt-slammed in the neck. Then he quick-drew and emptied his gun, at the enemy rolling out behind Izanami. The Triad elf ducked away. Hotspur charged out, again, and a bullet punched through his armour.

He stayed up. Izanami screamed at him to move, as her Heal washed over him. She summoned a spirit of wind and lightning to clear out her flank. The Triad shaman had flung a Slowing spell at Harry, before Izanami had got her. And there was the cloying stink of his own blood, but he had practised dampening his pain with Ki, because no pain could stop him.

He was still moving, fast–so were the Triad hitmen. A troll and a razorgirl with SMGs; a _Hung Ga_ Adept. And the Gun-Adept, the ugliest elf he'd seen, with a Colt Manhunter in each hand. Coming in firing, from behind–Izanami rolled for cover, trailing blood.

Hotspur ducked back from the SMG fire, and slashed. The Gun-Adept leapt back, sunk a bullet in his thigh. Parried another strike with both his pistols. Hotspur was faster to break the deadlock with his kick; Izanami burnt the gunman down with acid. They took a minute to breathe and Heal. Then Hotspur took more wounds, kicking in a door to outflank the gunners; he cut them down with lightning strike after strike, as Izanami covered him. They breathed hard. Izanami spat blood on the floor and stared at it. Hotspur slapped on a nanite soaked pad from a medkit; he felt only dull pain, but wounds still slowed and killed.

Then there were the two that Harry might've thought twice about facing singley. A bare-chested, barefisted ork, built like a truck; the crew boss. And the pale, bald man in robes, with a long moustache; the Incense Master. Who dropped his jaw like a snake, to cough a green cloud of poison over Hotspur. Then he flew at Izanami, throwing fire. Before Harry's limbs could stop shaking, the boss had punched him to the floor.

Izanami sent him another Heal; cried out, as the fire claws scorched her. From the floor, Hotspur slashed round at the ork's legs. The boss leapt up, kicking three times in mid-air. Harry rolled and staggered back, blocking all the way. One kick still struck at his ribs; he felt the crack throughout his chest. He had half a minute, before he dropped.

"So foolish, to cause us such trouble, for a little bubble of fame," The Incense Master's voice was calm and soft; Harry knew Izanami was down, "The Yellow Lotus will rule the centuries. Your silly sword and silly rage will be blessedly forgotten within a season."

Harry felt his psyche muddy and twist–and then he knew he would win. He was an Adept. That arrogant _coot_ thought he couldn't break mind-magic! Purpose burst through his head as he screamed out, hacking a great chunk from the ork's forearm. The Triad Mage hissed in annoyance, readied a Flamestrike. Then Inazami rose from the floor and leapt. Stabbed her _tanto_ knife into his guts until he was dead, and still stabbed then.

Bloodied and heaving, like a bull in the ring, the ork boss still clapped his claws over Hotspur's third swift strike; broke the sword in two. With nothing left in his mind that could flinch, and no path left in his world but through his enemy's throat, Hotspur opened it with the broken sword–as the ork's Killing Fist sank in his stomach. Blood poured from Harry's mouth as they crashed down, and the rest was silence.

Burnt and bleeding, Izanami finally managed to groan. She crawled towards Harry; grasped his wrist, below the DocWagon monitor bracelet. Footsteps; through the haze she saw three fearful, shadow-eyed faces. Trafficked girls, kept by the Triad men who were now dead. Disbelieving their own freedom which indeed would probably not last long, in the slums. Still, that idiot would have been happy for them. He would never change.

-0-

Harry woke up in the DocWagon facility where he spent the next month, even on a gold contract. Before med-nanites and synthetic blood, he supposed there'd still been heroes–and they'd died or lived crippled for their convictions. Instead of surviving (Like the Triad boss, back on the streets to swear revenge), a little slower and a little more fearful. A _very_ little, but he was a Runner. Simply to live, he had to be fastest, and fearless. To do what he had to do, he fragging would be.

Izanami, her beauty only marred a touch by 50's skin grafts, was waiting and smiling when he woke. Harry managed to smile back–but went cold when the slim hand she laid on his chest was missing one finger.

The war between the Yakuza in Everett and the true Triad stronghold in Tacoma was still raging when Harry got on his feet. For her part in provoking it, Izanami had gone through the traditional _Yubitsume_ penance; she'd also been long since sent to Tokyo for her own safety. She told Harry she did not have a single regret; he was an idiot not to come with her and rule in hell, but it was his own choice. Hanzo, also minus a finger, went with her to Tokyo. Harry wondered if the Yakuza princess would fight for and gain all she dreamt of, or die in the shadows. He hoped Hanzo, the diffident, novahot little decker, would work up the nerve to tell Izanami he'd loved her since he was twelve.

There was talk among the _Shigeda-gumi_ of killing Hotspur, for turning the hostile peace with the Triads into shooting war. But he had charged against their enemies, with death in his heart; honour made it unthinkable. They simply revoked his protection and advised him to take his valour elsewhere. _Yubitsume_ couldn't be strictly ordered, since Harry was not full Yakuza. He could have parted on excellent terms with the Yaks if he had offered up his pinkie, but he did not.

He needed ten fingers to grip another dikoted katana, which emptied his wallet after a ticket to Calfree. He was alone, penniless and hunted, a fool who'd lost his dreams. But he would find Susan Lei and this time he would save her, if it meant running to her through hell.


	3. Lost in the Shadows

_What a thrill..._  
_With darkness, and silence, through the night..._  
_What a thrill..._  
_I'm searching, and I melt into you._  
_What a fear in my heart,_  
_But you're so supreme..._  
_I give my life,_  
_Not for honour, but for you._  
_In my time, there'll be no one else_  
_Crime, it's the way, I fly to you._  
_I'm still in a dream,_  
_Snake Eater..._

_-Snake Eater, Metal Gear Solid, Cynthia Harrell_

* * *

**Redmond, Seattle 2046, six years ago (Susan and Harry)**

_The lack of shopping malls in Redmond, along with power and clean water, didn't stop Christmas. There was a basement party, with basement homebrew synthol diluted with cola. Some echo-electric, chrome-edged tunes on the speakers that howled _ _shadowrun. It was the year Shield Wall's first album came out and Harry had a chocolate-coloured elf teenybopper to dance up against him all night. At least until Susan had stopped awkwardly loitering near the wall to punch out a drug dealer, and the party broke up with gunfire._

"This town has done us dirty

This town has bled us dry

We've been here for a long time

And we'll be here 'till we die

Let's finish off the leavings

Of chips and synthol beer

And burn this fragging city down

Every summer of the year!

Going Transmetropolitan, yip-ki-yay…"

_All that day, she'd put him through a kind of dancing. Hard sparring practise, broken by uncertain silences as they sat together. She'd greeted his date with the sincere smile and hard eyes she had with all his girls–his Kung Fu princess was protective of everyone, Harry knew. He might have asked her out as a friend, except she was going to the party anyway; he hadn't a clue why._

_"I know, I blew your date," She muttered, after they'd run three blocks, "Sorry, but–"_

_"–you took out that dealer like the trash he was. Novachill!"_

_"That isn't a word."_

_"It'll catch on. Hey, do you want to watch the sunrise?" _

_The Japanese TriD channels had given Harry the idea, between seasonal ads. They took the stairs to their apartment block's roof, with their least threadbare blanket. Susan took more than half, for her bare arms, and still shivered. They peered at the smog that choked Seattle's predawn skyline._

"_Are we even going to see the sun?" Susan muttered. "Hope you take your girlfriends on better dates."_

"_Not a date, remember?"_

"_Don't you forget it."_

_Harry dodged Susan's offhand shove. His childhood friend, _best_ friend. Rival and teacher. Fellow shadowrunning dreamer. All of it surged between them, like a flower between two stones, and there was the seed of a new universe in her dark, defiant eyes…but fullness and fruition did not live in the Redmond Barrens._

_Harry stared past the skyscrapers like prison bars, toward the epic shell of the Renraku arcology. Still under construction after six years; all dreams and no deeds. His life felt the same, right now_ _–_ _but that would change, one day._

"_Hey. When they finish that huge thing, what'll they put in it?"_

"_Everything," Harry answered readily, "Factories, schools, hospitals, shopping malls. Another nest of happy wageslaves, except bees fly out and see the sun."_

"_Nice place to visit though? We could go to a sushi bar. You could switch up that tatty jacket, I could pick a dress…" Susan leaned back with a wide smile, "Think I'd look good in a dress?"_

_As if she were shifting her weight back for a snap-kick, Harry knew there was no safe answer. But he wasn't a coward; he said 'maybe' and got a slap with another smile._

_A point to them both, in their endless, invisible sparring match. She had to be the strongest, to live and get out of the Barrens one day, and so did he. Maybe her beautiful honesty was all in his head, since he knew her so well…although Harry could think of no one else but him who she messed around with even a bit._

"_They wouldn't let slummers in there anyway. Except for us; we'll both be Prime Runners before they finish it."_

_"Probably, yeah. So, we could sneak in, but they wouldn't 'let us in–'"_

_"Only if we went as security, or executives, or simsense stars," Harry's smile flashed; he was leaping ahead to where his heart belonged, "Shadowrunners can be anyone, do anything. No Corp will ever tell us where we can go. Whatever happens, wherever we are–let's meet at that pyramid, when we both make Prime, and make a Run on them for everything they've got!" _

_"A date in_ _the Shadows? Maybe._"__

_As Harry chattered on__, bright eyes fixed on his dreams,_ _Susan watched him. Her dark eyes almost closed from weight of emotion._

"_Yeah, if it's just the two of us we could take on a dozen Red Samurai? Stealth the rest. With a chill song on earphones like 'Geek the Creeps', or 'Runners never die', you know? They were on at the party…maybe we'd need mic implants, not earphones…" _

_"Idiot. What about this?"_

_She pushed a headphone into his ear, tapped her old PDA. It was just one of the cheesy, shmaltzy girl-power songs he'd always known she liked. Never known why, when her fists and her heart were the strongest in Redmond…she was simply a girl beyond his understanding._

"I know you think that I shouldn't still love you

Or tell you that

But if I didn't say it, well I'd still have felt it

Where's the sense in that?"

_Couldn't they get into the pyramid as simsense stars on their honeymoon? Susan in a glittering black gown, as she kicked through a Samurai's neck_ _. A dress to show off the snow-smooth plain of her back in the moonlight, before they abseiled off a balcony. Then her breasts like twin worlds filled with comfort, as she turned to him. The heaven of her eyes within reach…_

"I will go down with this ship,

I won't put my hands up and surrender…"

_Her eyes were gazing up from his shoulder, where she'd rested her head. Couldn't she see…? Though if she saw all his raging desire, he'd be a smear on the street. Susan Lei. The girl he couldn't have and couldn't ever lose; the only one._

_"Sun's up," It was; a bloody smudge through the fog. Harry's face withdrew from Susan's lips, as he stood, "Don't even feel tired. Let's get down, find out how we're going to get breakfast?"_

_"Hope you find something before tomorrow, idiot," She still smiled at him, "You need to notice things a bit more, if we're going to be shadowrunners."_

_Her untouched lips burnt him through–but he'd have held back, even if he'd let himself see. He didn't just want kisses, didn't just want _her_, when they were so much more. They would be Prime Runners; deadly, invincible, chill. After their greatest shadowrun, on top of the world they'd saved, miles from Redmond …it would be a moment worth the weight within, to ask her if she dreamed of _him_. One day..._

-0-

**2052, Club Eclipse, San Francisco (Harry 'Hotspur' Fawkes)**

Harry stared at the video where Susan had fallen into a walking assault flashback, between a crowd of furious metahumans and a squad of marines. She had killed three orks, Orion told him, but she hadn't lain down to weep and get trampled. She'd fought. Harry could only be glad of that, and glad she wasn't dead.

More metas had been shot at the march. More had been 'casualties' of the subsequent 'crackdowns' in San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley–

"–in plain words, the victims of metahuman xenocide."

The old ork's eyes were black, howling fire, to raze a hundred trog-hating kingdoms. Harry personally thought 'xenocide' too strong, but what he put to Orion was that Susan had been trapped in a flashback, out of her own control. Wronged, wounded, fallen and always fighting, but for frag's sake–

"–only human?" Orion growled, "An Adept holds superhuman power; we must be more than that. I taught her to break _mind control_! I gave her the tools to break free from her past. What answer is 'only human' to those three orks, or their families? At this time, in this city, as deportation and murder herald xenocide…one question stabs through to the truth. _What was she doing_? _What are you doing?_ _What will I do_? I sincerely hope that I will do nothing but speak plainly and severely, when I meet with Susan Lei again…but in this city, at this time, there is nothing I might do for my people that I will baulk from!"

_"You'll find a better way, Dad."_ The PDA buzzed, shocking Harry yet again, _"You're better than this. Susan's better than that fragging video. Alpha Base. She saved both our lives."_

"Yet she is only human, as are we all. That is the unhappy truth."

Ilsa Tresckow, still in her dancing gladrags, had come up to the bar while the video had been on. Her gaze swept severely over the two Adepts and the PDA, as she adjusted her glasses and crossed her arms under her breasts.

"If you fellows have decided not to kill each other," She went on, "Perhaps you'll see the wisdom of discussing our _enfant terrible_ more circumspectly?"

"If you're Susan's chummer–" Harry got out, "–if she vanished after _that_, then what the frag are you doing _here_, prancing around?"

"Why else, except that I know she is safe! She sent a message–but where she is now, I do not know. I engaged a decker, I searched, and after two months…I needed to drink, and not to think. Haven't you had needs of that sort at times, _Warrior_?"

"_Oo! Need a medkit for that burn." _The PDA gave a digital snigger. Harry realised that both Ilsa and the unseen speaker knew exactly as much about him as Susan did. Because she had told them. She had talked about him...

"You had best tell us all you know, Tresckow," Orion grated, "And also this decker of yours."

"Oo, is that, like, my cue?"

Harry turned toward the cheerful, trilling voice, and waving hand. The slim brunette he'd noticed on entering the bar had sashayed up beside Ilsa. Her bodysuit went with her figure so well, she might have been born to wear it, and the Matrix goggles perched on her fringe were high mid-end. She looked about eighteen, however, and her smile might have born into a world of sunshine yesterday.

"Hi there! I'm Hailey. Just a simple San Francisco decker girl–so far! And my folks are natives too, everyone says that's totally rare, you know? Chip truth, gotta say it...I'm, like, totally stoked to be mixed up in this biz, chummers!"

_"Don't doubt you are. Welcome aboard."_ The PDA chirped. Harry guessed it would've been making some doubtful faces, if it'd had a face. Orion did glance very dubiously at Ilsa, who feigned blindness.

Harry picked up bitter tension between the Mage and the ork–and the digital ghost of his daughter Anya on the PDA, whom Harry was quietly introduced to as the party made their way to a booth. He was scarcely more floored to be speaking with a bona-fide A.I. than by Orion's unguarded revelation. He realised later that Ilsa, Anya and even Orion regarded Susan Lei's friend as family. On the basis of a few hours, the shadows of Calfree held as many shocks and wonders…as the shadows anywhere else, at their black richest. But it was simply natural, that his beloved Fighter had pulled together a party like this.

-0-

Ilsa's boyfriend had been sent home to Berkeley in a cab by her, with a trusted acquaintance. San Francisco wasn't a safe city for a dwarf scholar of 19th century history to wander alone. So the council of war in the quiet, leather-lined booth consisted of Harry, Ilsa, Orion, Hailey, and Anya, _via_ PDA. It quickly came out that the orks had rolled into Frisco only a few days ago. Being hunted by Saeder Krupp was a hindrance to fast travel or keeping an eye on the news. Ilsa managed to cut off Hailey's squeeing about a real life A.I. by ordering her to explain her part in this drama.

"Well, I've been, like, looking for my first shadowrun at Eclipse, and I talked to Miss Susan a bit between her songs. She was, like, mega chill, a real shadowrunner! When she vanished after that awful march and Miss Tresckow came looking for her, I, like, promised to make good and help find our chummer. Runner's honour!"

Harry suspected there was more than that, from a sudden darkening of Hailey's sunny manner. But forging on with her story, it shone out again.

"So, at first I hacked comms on those grumpy-pants Marines–"

"_You did what, now?"_ Now Anya's synthetic voice sounded plainly disbelieving, _"I'd have started with the Metahuman's People's Army, anyway. Since they've been looking for our girl from day one, with a price on her head."_

Anya helpfully projected a small hologram of the infamous Baysprawl pro-meta terrorists' netsite. A grim-jawed ork with an axe on one shoulder, and an AK-97 on the other. Harry could only imagine one response from him to three dead orks, or anything else that offended…no. His killing angel had killed regular people, not guards, or gangers; she'd crossed a line. But wasn't the blood on his own hands from Hong Kong so much thicker? He'd said he'd run to her through hell; he'd meant it.

"Um, the Marines are looking for Susan as well," Hailey was saying, "And not to pin a medal on her, you know? Like, you have seen the bodycam footage from the march?"

On her laptop, Hailey quickly called up the footage she had hacked, over a month ago, from a marine's standard helmet camera and bio-monitor. It showed the Mission District march; Susan standing up before the marines, steadier than before. And then the massacre of metahumans that followed. Orion watched with terrible resolution, as first an orc woman, then a teenage elf, entered the sights of the unseen gunman, and fell. Hailey couldn't look at it for a second time; Harry thoughtlessly squeezed her hand, as his eyes stared and searched.

As the elf child fell, the camera jerked. And then there was Fighter's dark-eyed face. For a second of horror and fury, before the cam fell and an unknown soldier's lifesigns called cut. Harry couldn't have stopped smiling to save his life.

"She killed three orks and four marines." Hailey told them, "I bet she saved a load of metas …and we can guess she got the frag out of Dodge, ahead of the Marines and the MPA."

"Only Susan." Ilsa sighed, "She meant well, as always. And for the one time, she didn't drag me along."

"Of course, the Marines didn't want anybody to see a girl in heels kick their butts," Haylee babbled on, "And the MPA didn't want their big outrage story getting confused, so they smashed PDAs and censored news-sites. They only let the first vid get out all over. Like, you know, stupid hate is business for both of them? I've always thought, you know, that _trust_–"

Orion raised a claw to cut her off.

"Miss Hailey. I advise you to think a little more before preaching cheap trust to one who has watched his family murdered for their metatype…and has outlived, at least, senseless hate. But not mistrust, even of his student, and what old fool could escape his own ignorance? Thank you for correcting me. Anya?"

"…_thanks. You're going to go far, chummer."_ Anya's mortified shame blazed from the PDA.

"So, everyone's looking for Susan to kill her," Harry rounded on Ilsa, "But you've got a message that she's alive. Can I see it_ now_?"

"Since I came to San Francisco with Susan, I have been giving basic magic classes in Oakland and Berkeley, with the People's University. A young ork I had not seen at my classes before or since left me a handwritten note, nearly a fortnight after Susan vanished. We have found nothing to tell us where she is since then."

With noticeable reluctance, Ilsa retrieved the paper from her bag. Harry snatched it from her, shaking. It was actual handwriting. Misspelt without a Comm's autocorrect, of course–_Susan's writing_. Bad as back in the Redmond basement school, when they'd reluctantly learnt what a pencil was for–and thought of love, someday. as they flicked spitballs at each other's hair.

_Ilsa. Not ded yet. With ppl who dont like humans. Safe, but u wdnt be. Cant leeve atm. Don't worry abt me. When Harry comes, tell that idiot we'll meet in the Shadows, if he can remember when we had dreams._

When we had dreams. When Harry comes. Two years of nothing without her, all his frag-ups and drek he had left her for, and now…

"'_When...?_'"

"It seems I must explain in simple words." Ilsa's cold voice was a bell in Harry's heart, "Why did _SeeräuberJenny_ truely stand up on live TriD, for all her enemies to see? _Because you would see her and come to save her_. Didn't you hear her song? The ship coming in to make her a pirate queen? That poor fool didn't plan for all this, I _hope_–but here you are. We are going to find Susan Lei, and that idiot still wants you to save her. The pure, SINless boy in her nightmare. The dream that sustained her life, two years. The man who left and was nothing to her, for two years. _Which one are you, Hotspur?_ If you even think of hurting my wounded friend…then I am a wizard, and death may not be the worst you should fear."

Harry stared at the message of the woman he loved. Who he'd left and failed, again and again, who still loved him…because two minutes and three fragging gangers had broken a deep trust in her, and left nothing but their childhood dreams? Because their nightmare first Run, his stubborn stupidity, mean no one could save her…but _him_? He wanted to weep…but not at this table. He was a Runner. He had to protect her. That was all that mattered.

-0-

"No word in over a month. We do not know she is safe." Harry finally got out, "She said 'people who don't like humans'–is she hiding with metahuman militants?"

"Oh, we thought of that!" Hailey gushed, wide-eyed, "But she's not with the October Alliance, and so many little resistance groups aren't techie enough to trace through the Matrix. Sorry; I really haven't found anything solid. Obviously, she's not with the MPA. Those monsters even threatened her when she was_ SeeräuberJenny, _just a singer!"

"'Monsters?'" Orion only had to speak quietly.

"Racist murderers and terrorists." Ilsa likewise spoke evenly and with convicted force, "They blow up commuter trains full of humans, the Marines firebomb Oakland city blocks in response–and do you want to see their messages for Susan?"

Hailey meekly recovered the messages on her laptop. The MPA had dug up _SeeräuberJenny's _past, fighting trog gangs in Seattle. Also, that she'd been beaten and almost raped on her first Run, and most of their threats started from there. Harry resolved to consider killing every last one of the fraggers, if he were ever at a loss what to do with his life again.

Ilsa followed up with a news report on the last week's suicide bombings and attempts. A gutted San Fran civic building, tiny corpses scattered like toys in the rubble. Harry could almost smell the brick dust and cordite. There were two other intact and crowded workplaces, where the bombers had been stopped, and a headshot of Colonel Saito, promising Swift Death to Evil. Then a guerrilla broadcast of a shadow-hidden troll.

_"These blows mark a new dawn of vengeance, for wounded metahumanity. We are the chosen heirs of the Earth. And a new dawn of blood for false humanity. No peace but the peace of death. Hail Norton. Norton lives."_

"What…?"

"Norton's Army." Ilsa glared down her nose, "They believe that America's destined king sleeps in the Caldicott Tunnel, or somesuch insanity." Hailey obviously wanted to correct something, but the talk moved on too swiftly.

_"No peace but death. Yeah, that explains why human 'Frisco does nothing, while Saito does his work."_ Anya commented. Hailey admitted her own parents felt that way, _"We need justice, not vengeance. Strength and respect, not sugarcandy utopias round the bent. Though I'm reading the bombers were actually humans, brainwashed with magic, not ork kids brainwashed with drek."_

"So, all is not lost." Orion mused, "Some of the Resistance have some measure of sense. With a message worthy of their cause, and restricted, strategic attacks…"

"The terrorists are not the Resistance," Ilsa snapped, "The People's University are teachers, journalists and doctors. People of thought and sense, like youself. They teach displaced metas to sustain themselves, make use of their skills and survive."

"Until they are burnt or shot, with their families?" Orion shook his head, "I will speak with your university, and I will speak with the groups you call terrorists. I will decide what role I will take in this struggle–but in the face of such hate, I believe nothing can be changed without fighting."

"I'm ready to fight and kill right now," Harry finally broke in, "If we can just find Susan before the Metas or the Marines do! That's what we're here for now, for our chummer, isn't it?" Ilsa and Orion nodded, and set their debating aside.

"...there was one new lead," Hailey offered, "It was to do with those awful suicide bombings."

"Yeah, doesn't sound good. But go on."

"Well, the Marines only stopped the two attacks because there was some kind of tip off. And there was a Run on a building contractor's offices, on the other side of the city. Word on the net is, they took advantage of the distraction. And, um, a guard saw the Runners. A big troll, an elf decker, an ork gunner…and an Asian woman who looked like an Adept."

"…no. Susan would be stopping the bombing, nothing else."

"Couldn't she have been, like, mind-controlled as well?"

"No. Adepts can't be mind-controlled." Orion nodded to confirm the precept, but Ilsa looked more cynical.

"You Adepts have your practised techniques, pushing the same human qualities to the same superhuman limitsbut wizardry is the bleeding edge that never stops cutting. However, since the bombings were the work of the MPA, I cannot see a way forward."

"Really?" Hailey piped up, "It wasn't Norton's Army?"

"For the last time," Ilsa glared at Haylee severely, "There will be persons, in days like these, foolish or desperate enough to believe any insanity. Our concern and Susan's, however, is with terrorists, armies and Megacorps. Not what I believe you call the tinfoil hat brigade!"

As Hailey had warned, none of her other leads had gone anywhere. They were in this dead end thirty minutes later, when a comm call summoned Hotspur to Kali's office.

"Of course, you are here for business, as well as love," Ilsa's face was enigmatic, as Harry got up, "Aztechnology?"

Her assumption was naturally correct. The Japancorps had found ample pretext in Atzlan's invasion of Calfree to ban Aztechnology from San Francisco, seizing another substantial piece of the Baysprawl pie to carve between themselves. All Aztechnology assets, however, including their towering main building, had been snatched up by the newly created Pyramid Holdings. That this was a shell company for the Azzies was an open secret–only proof was lacking. In the uneasy months since the march and the crackdowns, the Japancorps had resolved again to give one tottering threat to their dominance a final push.

"The old pyramid has been virtually under siege by shadowrunners for weeks." Ilsa informed Harry, "But Aztechnology's death grip on it appears secure. They've actually started throwing the bodies of Runners out the front door, to hang on through terror a little longer."

"If they're hanging on, we'll kick them over the cliff. That is, if you want in?"

Ilsa, Orion and Anya had better things to do, including lead hunting. Hailey practically threw herself forward.

"I've hacked into Corp subsystems, and the Marines, I just need a shadowrun! I mean, a Run like _this_! I've got a drone as well, and I won't slow you down! I've been practising running and hiding, I know how to duck! I'll throw in a fake Calfree SIN–you'll need it with all the checkpoints. I've been writing them since I was twelve, for my girlfriends to buy movies and beer and stuff…I know I can be a novahot decker, I only need a chance like this!"

"…you are a novahot decker." Harry sighed, "Keep practising that running. I'll think about it."

Harry left Hailey wiggling in excitement, as Ilsa and Orion looked at each other warily. A smile twitched, under his wistful but unyielding eyes.

-0-

Kali's office was smaller and less sumptuous than her old one in Antumbra. It was covered in suspect vintage instruments and framed posters of rock stars, including a faded one of the woman herself. Impressive decor meant different things in Seattle and San Francisco. Kali leaned back at her desk as Harry walked in.

"Change of plan, Hotspur–I assume you have made a plan? Rather than pining for your lady love? The Run on the pyramid must be made at eleven thirty in the morning, day after tomorrow. I'll throw in an extra thousand. It's just before a shift change–"

"–in broad daylight. In two days. Who do you think I am?"

"If you're not the Runner for this job…"

"You brought me here from Seattle, because I'd cut through an army and I'm not a meta. I don't have contacts in this city to get a way into the pyramid's floorplans, or the floorplans, within _two days_. I'll need both those things from you, after you convince me I'm not on the fragging decoy team."

"Look, Hotspur, there was a Run under cover of the bombings, last week. What do you suppose a _building contractor_ would be holding? The last set of floorplans for the pyramid, excluding fakes, in the whole city. Tick tock, get the picture? Another team will bring down the Azzies, unless you act now."

"In two days, _at eleven thirty_? I'm not an idiot! The best Runners in Hong Kong taught me that a time demand means you're the decoy! Getting shot dead, as the team with the plans escapes in a rotorcraft!"

"Not such a hothead as you act, eh?" Kali's lip curled, "If you won't be there for your date in the Shadows, I suppose I'll have to find some other idiots. Though I do wonder what you will do in San Francisco, after you welch on your first Run."

"Take a guess." Harry spread his hands, "I'll look for the woman I love." He spun around and walked out, under the acid gaze of Kali and her bodyguards–though something else was niggling at the back of his mind.

Ilsa and Hailey had already left the bar. Harry had rented a poorly soundproofed safe-room on the ground floor. Even if it gave Kali time to throw out his stuff, he resolved to go down and question the merchants in the lobby, until he dropped from exhaustion.

This meant he passed through the nightclub level, where he stopped dead. A particularly shmaltzy and old-fashioned song was pouring through the multi-shaded darkness. Some clubbers hurled abuse at the DJ, others cosied up to their lovers for a slow dance. And Harry–stood lost in a dream.

_"And when we meet_

_I'm sure we will_

_All that was there_

_Will be there still_

_I'll let you pass_

_And hold my tongue_

_And will you think_

_That I've moved on…?"_

He finally moved, charging through the thinning crowd to the DJ's booth. DJ Omphalous, a tall ebony elf lady with a nose chain, confirmed cheerfully that the song had been requested by PDA message.

"…someone's got to be sentimental round here, you know? If a schmaltz-fest from six years ago gets a request, you can be sure that song belongs to two people in love…"

_"I will go down with this ship_

_I won't put my hands up and surrender_

_There will be no white flag above my door_

_I'm in love…and always will be."_

Harry raced back to Kali's office, very nearly bursting in and getting shot. He leant over the unruffled producer's desk.

"'Our date in the shadows'. She called it that, didn't she? When you took her money, for supplying a decoy team–eleven thirty, at the pyramid–_for Susan Lei!_"

"You know I can't discuss my other clients–"

Harry smacked the desk, from pure surging excitement. He paced about the room like a tiger, shining with energy, burning with passion.

"'Our date in the shadows'–at the arcology, the pyramid! When we had our first kiss–at least, we should have– that was the song! She was on the team that took the floorplans, she set this up, she was right here! She's running the Shadows, she fell in with militants, a terrorist group–those two bomb attacks, there was a tip! She'd do anything to save lives. There was no way to get a message out, but she found a way! She wants us to stop them, together, she wants me to find her! In two days. We'll get floorplans from the pyramid itself, if we have to. We'll be your decoys and we'll cut through it all. We'll turn it the frag around, together!"

Kali might have told Harry that Susan had looked dark and crazed as the path she was on. Even if she'd said nothing but what she had to, in the brief time before she ghosted out of Kali's office, untraced.

But Harry was running to get Orion and call Ilsa, and he wouldn't have heard. He saw Susan clearer than holograms, brighter than trideo. Pure and invincible, fighting in the Shadows–waiting for him, with a smile and her fists on her hips.

Harry found Orion still in the booth, writing in his diary, and poured the story out. In the end, the ork stood. He moved as if there had been enough bullets in him to make a statue for his grave–but Harry felt his latent power, as they clasped hands.

"We will join you, Anya and myself. Susan is my student, and we may learn ourselves, as we seek her."

"…very well." Ilsa said, finally, over Harry's PDA, "I must get Susan out of this absurd mess, though afterwards I may kill her for getting into it."

"This is so wiz!" Hailey sounded like she was bouncing with excitement, "We're going to kick a whole Megacorp out of San Francisco, and even reunite Susan with her lost love! My first shadowrun is totally going to be the greatest ever!"

* * *

_A/N: The songs I've rather disingenuously presented as the biggest hits of 2046 are in fact 'Transmetropolitan' by the Pogues, and 'White Flag' by Dido._


	4. The Pyramid Run

_"...in a new mining district the rough element predominates, and a person is not respected until he has "killed his man." That was the very expression used. __If he had, the cordiality of his reception was graduated according to the number of his dead...when a man came with the blood of half a dozen men on his soul, his worth was recognised at once and his acquaintance sought__...The deference paid to a desperado of wide reputation, who "kept his private graveyard,"...was marked and cheerfully accorded...They were brave, reckless men, and travelled with their lives in their hands."_

-Mark Twain, _Roughing It_

* * *

Early on the morning of the Run, Ilsa was sleepless. She gazed over her boyfriend's neat little Berkeley apartment. Then at Henry, breathing gently into the mattress beside her. Still asleep from their evening of intense and mindful lovemaking–she'd told him she would be gone for a week or so, he'd known she might not be coming back.

It was a comfortable relationship, and a loving one–even if she didn't believe it was _love_. She cleared out for a week, when his next book on the Civil War got to a tricky chapter–he didn't call when a demanding magical experiment or shadowrun demanded her attention. Though in a crisis like this, when she needed love and sex at once, he had always been there for her. She might not have been for him; but she told herself that such things were less urgent for over-forties.

After drifting into 'Frisco with Susan, Ilsa had come to the People's University with the idea of finally embarking on her doctorate. What she had found, beneath the outrageous disorder, was the wisest and kindest body of boffins, geeks, hippies and passive resistors she had ever known. Her chance to do some good. Free classes in magic, open to any half-starved, bright eyed Oakland slummer with a glimmer of talent, didn't redeem all her crimes in the Shadows. But it was a better thing to devote her life to than revenge–or the next shiny academic medal. She had begun that doctorate after all, and Henry had introduced her to simply going out and having fun, so she'd filled her days up very sufficiently. It was wonderful to have somebody to take out for dinner, and the money for a decent place; better than drinking cheap synthol alone in Redmond. Sometimes, she even forgot that one evil minute could burn this life away.

When they had first got chatting in the library, she had inquired if _everyone_ asked him what use were history lectures, in a violent occupation? With that charming dwarfish twinkle, he'd said that everyone asked but her. He knew she knew that survival without thought was not life.

"It is a beautiful thing, Ilsa," He'd told her, when they finally retired to his flat together, "That a human and a dwarf can love each other, in these troubled times. It is…beautifully right."

Of course, he liked her brains and her body as well as her metatype. A caring heart, an insightful mind, surprisingly good in bed…there wasn't the passion she had shared with Paladin. But she was fairly sure that hadn't been love either. A fated bond, like Susan and Harry, doubtless made everything simpler. Though it had done them little good so far.

And now Susan was possibly embedded in a group of psychotic terrorists. It hadn't been lost on Ilsa that the note to her, then the bombing tip-offs, then that crazy message through a song, marked a narrowing of communicative ability. Susan was not safe. They would find her. But she, Ilsa, definitely wasn't getting back to sleep.

Anya would be awake. Calling the digital ork, for the first time since Alpha Base, was predictably unsettling. A simple comm call, with the knowledge that there was no body on the other end because of her choices.

_"Hello there, Wiz."_ Anya synthetic voice had somehow kept her old sass, _"This sure is a surprise. Did you know Norton's Army are supposed to be a front, for either the MPA, the Azzies, or fragging Humanis? Roaches always come back."_

"Much as Pyramid Holdings acts as a front for Aztechnology. As above so below. There are certainly worse things in the Shadows here than urban legends," Though easier to talk about than themselves... "That peaceful march through the Mission District, into the guns of the Marines, was almost certainly organised by a terrorist group or foreign power, looking for a match and powder keg. I suppose you've been researching the situation?"

_"What else would I be doing?"_

"Anya..." Ilsa sat up in bed, hugging her knees, "I called to ask how you were. In yourself...?"

_"…have I gone crazy yet? If it isn't so, why did I frag up with the bodycam footage?"_ Anya sighed. Ilsa wondered if the fleshy reaction was habitual or deliberate, _"Being hunted by a Mega is like living in a hole. I know about that, from the Alpha Base years. Only Dad's in it with me now…I suppose when he saw Susan going crazy, I went along with him. He truly has no one left but me, understand? And I've got no one but him in the meatspace, metahuman world."_

"I'm sorry we couldn't keep in contact. Saeder Krupp know me, and will not forget. If they called in an hour and threatened Henry, the University, Susan–"

_"–or gave you anything you really wanted, you'd do anything they asked. No hard feelings. We're going to find Susan, finally get our _chica_ her man. Then I'm vanishing again, with Dad."_

"The University has many world-class deckers. You could make other contacts, other links." Considered silence. Ilsa forged on, "Your father is a humane, intelligent ork. He would do better with the People's University than the terrorists."

_"Surely you mean freedom fighters?"_

"They are not the same. The MPA are the Humanis Policlub for metas."

_"Not the same. Humans started the war; humans taught the ork to kill and hate. Dad's writing a book, did you know? His diaries, our story–all we've lost and suffered since the start. You tell me, when you read it, if he could ever go too far for justice. I don't know how he holds back from killing them all. The humanis, the marines, the silent, ordinary fraggers behind them. I can tell you, whatever he does, I'll be with him."_

"An ork and an A.I. against the world; but only human, still. As was Susan. The best woman we know plunged into this morass, and it took her, Anya. If you care for your father, I advise you to hold him back."

_"Oh, we're in this war already; we can't change what we are. But Susan took a stand in the line of fire; she made that choice. We are going to save our chummer, meatgirl, and I surely hope you are 1000% online with that."_

With little more to say, Ilsa severed the connection. She got up and covered herself with her dark suit and cloak. Checked her fetishes and foci, then left to meet the other Runners at Eclipse. She didn't kiss her boyfriend's sleeping, sunlit head goodbye; with all she'd done and was still doing, there was no point pretending she could fall in love. All she could do was find the girl in the Shadows who still might.

-0-

The high-end, but battered Buick (the best car Ilsa had found in 48 hrs that they could afford second-hand) screeched into the curb beneath Aztechnology's old pyramid. Calfree sun gleamed off towering black edges, and watching sentry turrets, as the green-armoured guards levelled SMGs. Ilsa stepped from the car and marched briskly to the front gate, wrinkling her nose. The approach to the pyramid was indeed sprinkled with un-fragrant Runner corpses. Extraterritoriality was a marvellous thing.

In her heels and suit, Ilsa was the image of a top-flight Wagemage. Her bodyguards–Hotspur and Orion–respectively wore their suits with charming scruffiness and like a sack. Hailey did her best to appear a heavily-laden and nervous PA. A sudden urge to pee her pants with terror helped.

"Dr A.E. Moritz; security consultant." Ilsa announced herself, "Since I was attacked on my way here by some ill-advised shadowrunners or terrorists–" (Harry had reinforced this excuse for their car's sorry state by emptying his Browning at it), "–it is doubly important that I am no later for my meeting with your MD than I am already."

A guard presently looked up from Ilsa's forged credentials.

"I'll call the front desk, Ma'am. We've had a drekload of incidents–"

"–hence, I do not wish to stand any longer in the street. While your front desk carries out the requisite security checks it is their job to perform, I will wait inside. Then I will be able to do my job, and you will receive the support to continue doing yours. Or I could call my dear friend Mr Tooms directly, now."

Harry mused on the frightening power of beautiful women, as the guard ushered them past to the air-conditioned, pot-plant-sprinkled lobby. A large fresco of a toothy Mesoamerican serpent stared down behind the receptionist. Who eventually steeled himself and told Ilsa that she had better call the MD, Morgan Tooms, or else he would.

"And how would your boss regard this, when you haven't even run level 4 checks on our SINs? That is standard procedure at Head Office, or weren't you aware?"

'Head Office', at Pyramid Holdings, meant Aztechnology. The receptionist started tapping out the level 4 checks. The good news was, this would take a while. Bad news–which made Hailey desperately press her legs together–was that her fake SINs would not have the history or cross-refs to withstand it.

Then she noticed that Ilsa's fingers were working behind her back, as she stood furiously and obtrusively at the desk. Hotspur and Orion had sat down to one side, unregarded–and their eyes were flicking over the positions of the lobby guards.

_"Ready to roll, girl genius."_ Anya whispered in her earpiece.

Hailey rolled and dived, behind the lobby's hulking bag scanner, as Ilsa's fireball blazed and blasted. She heard Hotspur's lightning footfalls–gunshots–_body_ falls. Hands shaking, but with no time for fear, she ripped open her bag. Her prized Strato-9 drone hovered up above the bag scanner. Its cameras sent her eyes a scene of death.

Hotspur, the dashing, gorgeous, very-sadly-taken Prime Runner of her dreams, had cut down two guards before they could aim their shots, with barely a splash of blood on his suit (Wasn't that the suspension bridge effect, where the touch of death made you wish you'd had sex just once more?). More guards were firing on Orion, as they dashed in from the gate. He ducked behind a bench, aimed three heavy AK bullets, and that gunfire ceased.

An enemy was moving, on the floor. At Hailey's thought, her drone _pocked_ a little bullet into his head, and she had killed.

Ilsa was dropping around the solid slab of the front desk, as bullets rang off it; her flamestrike burnt another guard down. The receptionist came back up with a pistol; a firebolt from her off hand killed him. Then it was over, with no noise left except for alarms. Security shutters clanged down over the glass front doors, but they were heading up.

Orion tore off his suit jacket as he strode forward beside Hotspur, who was tying on his headband. Ilsa pulled Hailey up by one arm, as she kicked her heels away.

"If worst comes to worst, you can be the Runner who peed all over Aztechnology. You're doing better on your first Run than I did, at least."

-0-

Ilsa had grilled the sole survivor, minus his left hand and right arm, of a previous failed Run on the pyramid. His team had been surrounded in the Matrix room that the Runners had now reached. Orion covered the door, with a small Watcher spirit from Ilsa, who took a seat herself and dropped into the Astral. Hailey, silent and solemn for once, put her Renraku Kraftwerk cyberdeck on her knees and Jacked into the Matrix. Where Anya was naturally ready and waiting.

The floor was flooded with green uniforms, rushing down corridors, and thrusting FN HAR rifles round every corner. A team of Spiders on the security cams were bawling into their comms. Attrition had worn their numbers down, but there were more than enough squads in this arcology to shoot down four more bodies. All shadowrunners believed they always won–but after weeks of killing Mages, deckers and Street Sams, Pyramid Holdings knew they did not. However many Runner teams were in play, they would be found and crushed–even if the internal shutters that had trapped the last crew were already offline. But the sprawling blank corridors of the pyramid dizzied and deceived; there were cameras everywhere. Runners could only run so far before they fell.

Ilsa's plan demanded speed at every step; particularly locating the Director's office where the proof of Azzie ownership would surely be. From the Astral, she would confirm where guards were stationed, and where they _weren't_. In the Matrix, Anya and Haylee would go straight for the floorplans that would give them their route –and the maglocks or shutters that would bar it. They'd shot out all the cameras they could, on their way up–but Harry had proposed to confuse their location further with a dash around the floor. He was fast, he did not believe he could die, and getting surrounded in the Matrix room meant death. The instant the team could move, they would move.

Hotspur never stopped moving. He dashed in a half-crouch through another row of desks, as screens exploded behind him. He threw out shots from his Browning without aiming one, racing on. Shotgun pellets clipped him, but nothing stopped him. Susan had gone through fire and water, and she would be here–he was going to see her again! He would not die, their nightmares would end forever. If he killed as many fraggers in green armour as got in his way, and never stopped running.

All he feared was shooting one of the unarmed _sararimen_ and women, shaking under their desks. He eyes had to move faster than his feet–he spotted the hooded Wagemage as the Slow spell hit him. Ilsa's Haste spell was long since spent. Hotspur darted on, from cover to cover. He hacked through the hand of a bruiser who grabbed him and kicked the Azzie down. He angled his route for the home sprint, back to the Matrix room.

-0-

Within the Matrix, as Harry ran, a naked ork made of blue light-points stared at an animated clownfish. Hailey shyly noted that it was her favourite movie. A step-pyramid of golden blocks towered above them; she wiggled her tail in joyful awe. If it was only thinking that, like, made the world good or bad or ugly, why shouldn't a world of the mind look totes splendiferous?

_"Whatever. Try and keep up, girl genius."_

The avatars leapt toward the pyramid, fast as thought, and Anya's digital fists moved much faster. Shimmering blocks scattered and burst. Each level of the virtual pyramid formed an plaza studded with data pillars, like a silently, majestic ruin. And like spreading moss and insects, the scuttling calculations of profit, experiment and blood moved along every edge. Anya romped past it could barely trace the zig-zag path between authorisation nodes and level gates to follow her ascent.

Golden shards clustered into rising serpents, and more ICE shaped like eagles dropped from the empty sky. Hailey fired streams of bubbles at the few which Anya didn't immediately smash to their component digits–Hailey would have been breathless with awe, if avatars breathed. She did call up her Shield ESP, just in case, shaped like a little jellyfish.

Then a snake as black as obsidian rose at Hailey's side. It struck faster than she could read; her mental world shuddered and charred. It was only the second time she'd ever hit Black ICE. Her shield and her Recovery program were no defence.

She threw a Killer program, shaped like shark teeth, but the serpent slid aside. Could she take another hit, wouldn't she…_die_…?

_"JACK OUT!"_

Hailey thought that would have totally been the best idea, as the Black ICE hit her again. Reeling, sensing a ghost of tremendous pain, but ungeeked, she fired another Killer. It hit and killed. She then leapt to help Anya against the two Corp deckers that had risen up to bar her path; snakes with human faces and bodies. She didn't know if they were already surrounded, lost...no, she could _totally_ do this.

An enemy decker threw a Blaster attack, shredding at both their avatars' code. But Anya had already frayed down both hostile avatars with a Degrade program; Matrix combat was carefully planned and over in miliseconds. Two bubble streams blew both the dataslaves out; they would dropping down in meatspace with _awful_ dumpshock.

_"Jack out next time. You've still got that choice."_ Anya growled.

Hailey earnestly promised to remember, as she Recovered the damage to her avatar. Then they quickly moved ahead to the pillar that held the floorplans.

-0-

From what Ilsa had read, she actually preferred the contrived order of the Matrix to the swirling emotions of the Astral. Not that the rows of cubicle offices had much deep emotion attached anywhere, save for purple-yellow pillars of greed and fear–a manager's door–as well as some rosy smearings of spilt lust. And of course, the angry soul-lights of the guards.

Freedom from her silly, demanding flesh was always pleasant, for a while. Finding a gap between the mana walls which covered the top floor was an absorbing challenge, as always. The shadow of an Astral wagemage, flinging a manabolt at her back, was a predictable distraction. She swung her body around with a thought, as if on a spindle, and flung back the manabolt she'd been careful to prepare.

Back in meatspace, with his back to the doorframe, Orion fired on the massing guards and ground his tusks, cursing his age. He roared at Ilsa to give Haylee another medkit, as soon as the Mage returned to her body. The young decker found herself covered in nasal blood and smellier matters, as she Jacked out and staggered up. She had to admit that maybe shadowrunning wasn't always a glamorous job.

Orion charged from the Matrix room as Hotspur raced back to it; the squad of guards were crushed between them. The Runners ran, as the pyramid's battered defenders pulled back.

They dived into the first empty office without breath for speech. Anya and Ilsa swiftly combined the floorplans from the Matrix with the Astral vision of the guards' stations, on her PDA.

_"We forced two doors on the east side open, so most of the Azzies will head there. We'll head to the west side, unlock the doors when we get there at another Jackpoint."_

"…which is, in fact, there? Anya, are you aware that Megacorps use fake floorplans to confuse Runners? Our combined plan has two squads of soldiers stationed in a toilet."

It was a wavering moment. Haylee was about to sit down and cry, when Harry's swift words seized up all their hearts.

"There's one difference, or two; the Director's office is _there_. The paydata has to be there, Susan had got to be heading there! No time, no doubts, no stopping us! We're going to meet her!"

Desperate resolution shone from Harry's eyes; any doubt he'd had, he'd burnt. The Runners dashed out towards their target as if he had flung them from a catapult.

There was still a green line of guards in front of the west stairwell to the top, aiming their weapons over solid desks. A Wagemage readying a fireball; Ilsa fizzled his spell with a gesture and threw out a thundering earth spirit. Bullets plinked from its hide, and Hailey's little drone, as Orion threw his rifle away and charged with swinging fists. And Hotspur charged, katana raised at his side, crying out Susan's name.

His feet flashed until there was green on every side, and then he flung out three strikes fast as a trigger-pull. Through a neck, under a vest, a downward strike that cut chest and armour apart. Ilsa's heal stiffened his leg–a bullet had caught him, as he ran–and Orion snapped a neck with a punch at his side. Only a few guards fled, but none survived.

Orion's eyes were grim, looking on spilt and useless blood; Harry knew how he felt. But not now–this was for Susan. Nothing he did for her could be useless. Kicking a AAA Megacorp out of a sprawl city had never mattered less.

-0-

On the executive floor, they faced the Blood Mages. Ilsa dropped to the floor, white-faced, as a hooded woman cut down by Harry closed up her own chest with stolen life force. Hotspur fell to his knees under repeated Heatwaves–a bodyguard shot him in the chest, before he could cut the Azzie down. None too late, Orion wrestled down the blood-coated summon spirit, kicked it into red sparks, and punched two mages out. Surging up with a howl, Hotspur managed to chop down the woman again, and hacked her until she was entirely dead.

With their wounds from the floor below, they went on without medkits. But no chest wound would have stopped Harry charging ahead, to the antechamber of the director's office–

_"Don't open that door! Four turrets, haven't got control yet!"_

Harry almost collapsed against the door, a fallen knight. Two years of longing and fear burnt in him all at once, for the other side. Where Susan was. Wherever she was…

Orion supported Ilsa, shakily aiming his rifle one-handed, at the door behind. He was winded, Ilsa was bent and gasping. Running to the top of an arcology, fighting on the way, but they couldn't stop if they meant to live.

As more guards charged up from the floors below, Hailey Jacked out and ran after the others. Harry finally flung open the doors. All of them raced past the silent turrets, which cut down the pursuing guards in a storm of explosive shells. Harry gasped his thanks to Anya, as he raced to the Director's office and kicked in the door of the room at the top of the pyramid.

-0-

Morgan Tooms, Director of Pyramid Holdings' San Francisco operations–that is, Aztechnology's–had appeared quite unlike the crazed scientist or Blood Mage that the Megacorp's unredacted track record foreboded. He had affected a trimmed dark beard and a pin-striped suit; his work was to give the cheerful impression to shareholders that there was no blood on anyone's hands at all.

He was also extremely dead; laid out on the rich carpet of his office with a snapped neck. Fighter, in a shadowrunner's armour, stood over him.

Orion and Ilsa swiftly covered the huge, bearded troll glaring from Tooms' desk, who Ilsa quickly confirmed as a Mage. Also, the elf decker who had just finished with the desk terminal–stripping it of the Azzie paydata that was their goal, and all that Kali wanted. But Harry saw none of it. He made one faltering step toward Susan. A damned soul freed, struggling even to gaze on his angel. He reached out and said her name…

Then he saw that Susan's eyes were dull and dead. She did not move or acknowledge him at all, and the one thing she said was the final insanity.

"Hail Norton. Norton lives."

Then the troll raised a huge hand. As if in a nightmare, Ilsa saw lines of power reach for Susan and pull. Then the troll smashed the full-length window behind him, through which he, the elf and Susan made their exit. Harry and Ilsa were left in the office, with the storm of wind and nothing.


	5. The Emperor in Colma

_"No Californian gentleman or lady ever abuses a Chinaman. Only the scum of the population do it_ _–they and their children; they, and, naturally and consistently, the policemen and politicians, likewise, for these are the dust-licking pimps and slaves of the scum, there as well as elsewhere in America."_

_–Mark Twain, Roughing It_

* * *

"…Joshua Abraham Norton. A failed San Francisco rice merchant, in the mid-1800s. A Jewish Brit from South Africa, I believe, so as San Franciscan as anybody. And, of course, he got the idea one morning that he was Emperor of the old United States. He published decrees commanding everything from the abolition of Congress, through the institution of a United Nations, to a bridge across the bay. The City regarded him as the harmless crank he certainly was, but with affection and even respect–something like a sacred clown. Imagine how our Japanese friends would deal with poor Norton, were he alive today!"

They had fled the pyramid. Anya had blocked more armoured shutters, cracked open a fire escape and brought their van speeding round–they would have been trapped or turreted minutes into the Run without her. Orion had said simply that he was proud, then watched his PDA screen fill with hug icons.

The ork Adept was driving, not so fast as to get them stopped–his nerves of leather were the only ones unshattered. Ilsa had called Henry Chambers, her historian boyfriend, which showed just how shaken she was.

Dropping down harder from the Run than she could imagine her girlfriends did from novacoke–exhausted, damp and sticky–Hailey still thought it was totes wiz they had both a historian on speed-dial, and a cute decker who knew all the rumours about Norton's Army. She didn't say so, however. She glanced at Harry, who hadn't lifting his head or made a sound yet.

"Dear Ilsa, you know I can go on about history," Chambers was saying, over the comm, "But I…is it over? That, ah, shadowrun? My girl, are you safe?"

"Not yet,_ Liebling_. But I will stay safe–"

Then Harry batted the PDA out of Ilsa's hand.

"_Adepts can't be mind-controlled_. She couldn't be, she couldn't!"

Ilsa cursed Harry and scrabbled for the PDA. She assured her panicking lover she hadn't been cut off by a bullet, before ending the call.

"I told you, _dummkopf_! Be afraid of wizards!" Her own frustration glared into Harry's desperate eyes, "Susan has broken Blood Magic control before. However, if her will and even her self-image were to be shaken–as they were–and a spell worked subtly over weeks–as it must have been–"

"NO! FRAGGING NO!"

Hotspur, the unstoppable Runner, hit his own forehead with his hands and screamed. They had outrun death with no time for fear; now they were trapped, and Hailey was terrified.

"No, no, no! _Susan!_ I couldn't, I'm sorry…the fragging TROG!"

Orion screeched the van into the curb. He seized both Harry's hands until he stopped struggling. Hailey and Ilsa stayed frozen to their seats.

It had been a troll gang thug, in a Redmond truck park's darkness, not the troll that held her now_, _that had crushed Susan's beaten body under two years of struggle and shame. But that meant nothing–Ilsa, Anya and Hailey knew. Seizing a woman's strength and will with magic was already a kind of rape. Orion knew exactly what Harry was looking at, and he could barely hold him or speak.

Harry had risen to his knees, with a bullet in his gut. He'd emptied his gun at the monster above woman he loved, and it had not gone down. He hadn't saved her. For two years he had never saved her. And now in this city of madness–his eyes were hollow without end, his arms were limp–the undying nightmare had broken through.

-0-

**2052, San Francisco, two months ago (Susan 'Fighter' Lei)**

_Freedom, finally, had felt more unsettling for Susan than anything. Even before the rigorous, deadly demands of her time with the Agency–and the battle to end it–Harry's shadowrunning dreams and her father's Kung Fu had been the bloodstained rails directing her path. Now she had struck out in San Francisco on her own fresh way. Which meant that if bawling songs and dancing about in expensive clothes was not the best she could do with her strength, it was on her._

_"A singer? Isn't that quite a change?" Dear Ilsa had certainly looked dubious, but she'd been smiling._

_"Yeah, like Maria Mercurial! You know she was a Runner, once? Whoo weeeps for the childreeen…? Freedom, justice and rocking tunes!"_

_"Can you sing?"_

_"…I think they have _Autotune_? Pop idols don't have to sing, Wiz–" She had stared down from the plane, at the lights of Frankfurt, grinning unstoppably, "–all you really need is to _feel_."_

_Kali, once persuaded, did indeed have Autotune–though Kali's songwriters, Brecht excluded, churned out more trashy glitch-pop for her than meaningful megahits. _SeeräuberJenny_ had to make herself into a protest song; by instinct, she knew that performance was communication._

SeeräuberJenny_ stood above howling crowds and trampled on fear. For the shivering, cheering young girls she was confidence unashamed; assailed, but unbroken. For the guys, she was a pure, dizzying angel in ripped jeans, urging them to be better men for her–though for the ones who stared at her breasts all night, she had only defiance._

_It was skin-crawling scary, like dancing between bullets in the floodlights, and she soon loved the rush like battle. Kali had been right; she had the volume, the moves, the cred–and all you needed was a heart for the crowd. _SeeräuberJenny_, the pirate queen. Calling them to raise a black flag, make war on the stifling world. And if there were worse things than her young fans dreamt of, every hour in every city…with time, surely, she could change something?_

_She had sent some money to Mrs Fawkes (Buddha reward her), and the shelter in Redmond. But apparently singing idols needed to buy clothes and go to flashy restaurants at their own expense, 'to keep up their profile'. She had at least been firm with Kali that the next photographer sent to coax her, Susan, into a nude shoot would also lose his teeth._

_Like the infamous noise you notice four months after it stops–sat in a quiet Chinese restaurant, in a white cheongsam, as her waiter bowed and scraped–she realised she was an ex-shadowrunner. Killers still wanted to kill her. The MPA with their threats, all the gangs, Megas and people she'd ever hurt. That never changed, but she could forget it. Bury the fear under soft lights and designer perfume. She couldn't–no, she didn't have to fight. Susan's bare arms shivered. She ate her Beijing Duck like the sweetest thing she'd had._

_She'd been actually a little envious of the good work Ilsa had found in Oakland, but unrestrainedly thrilled for her. Though things had been a bit frosty with her friend, since she'd frankly told her she could do better than Dr Chambers. Maybe the dwarf-human thing was too weird…maybe she really was envious. Nothing in her assumed, drifting celebrity life could have made her complete–nothing under the stagelights, or the shadows–until her man was finally with her. Harry, where he belonged._

_She could have dated the minor simsense stars or singers Kali proposed, but she hadn't. The Shadows had taught her Never Give Up, if nothing else. And when the nightmare racked her again (There were the bullets, monowire, the thousand deaths that had stroked or battered her. But always her first Shadowrun, the Halloweeners who had thrown her down and _should_ have raped her because she was beaten and helpless, always...) it was Harry who stood up to save her._

_ Sweating over her sheets, pinned down, weeping for her helpless flesh, she always whispered for him. Save me, love me, forget all the fragging drek and come now. She'd let her miraculous life slide into oblivion, unless her hero got the happy end of his dreams that could not have died._

_Finally, she told some of this–that she was waiting for her boy, that she would keep waiting–to a cheerful greenhorn Runner called Hailey who she'd met around Club Eclipse. Hailey had thought her tale was _epically _cool;_

_"…and it's like, a total kwinkydink! My friend Tarne has sort of been missing for months." The PDA photo showed a solemn elf with dark hair, traditionally long, "He's, like, kind of a dreamer as well, you know? He always talked about getting metahumans together and fighting back. He wouldn't tell me much…but I thought when I was a novahot shadowrunner, he wouldn't be so protective!"_

_"Boyfriend?" Susan smiled, as Hailey blushed and wiggled down to her toes, "Or not yet?"_

_"Not yet…but I just really want to know that he's not in prison or a landfill, for being a meta."_

_By the time Hailey went on her innocent way, Susan had copied the photo of Tarne to her comm and learnt about the march planned in the Mission District. A group bizarrely named Norton's Army, which Tarne had_ possibly _worked with, were_ possibly _involved. If Hailey's Matrix searching hadn't tracked down her not-yet-boyfriend, she needed a Runner on the ground._

_What was freedom, if you couldn't do something different and good? Her tour of America's oldest Chinatown had been spirit-reviving. Even if she couldn't find Hailey's pretty-boy, she could see the oldest part of the city, and possibly show her support for afflicted metahumans?_

_-0-_

_It was largely a blur, from when she stepped between the soldiers and the march. Her unyielding harangue to the marines; _SeeräuberJenny's_ swansong against a massacre. With barely time to accept that she was facing guns again, facing death–it came down sudden as a baseball bat on her spine. She scented hope as the soldiers wavered, then turned to the ork who shoved her down in the street._

_Over half the marchers were women; the ones without banners simply shook their fists. Even children were running and shouting in the crowd. People who'd come freely to face soldiers with guns, because they wanted to live safe and free. Susan knew metahumans were _human_; people of every kind. She'd learnt, she'd overcome so many hells before, her mind was strong…!_

_Then the grit cut her arms. The trogs were black against the sun, above her, all their pounding feet in her face. That trog was grinning, _laughing_, she was helpless–NO. She was not weak! She was a shadowrunner! She would never stop fighting, she would not be crushed! Harry would find her, strong and pure as him…they'd run the Shadows, together…if she killed the orks._

_She could have stopped herself; her will was battle-forged. But it smashed into her free and easy life from nowhere…she just fragging didn't. She killed the orks. Until she saw the children fall down limp; felt bullets hammered the screaming bodies all round her. She leapt clear, saw the black-armoured marine, kicked up her gun barrel at her face. Lunged and punched to burst her midriff, like any other thug with a gun._

_She was a Runner, she was Fighter…she was staring and sweating, as the marines fell back. One bullet nailed her arm. She swayed aside from another burst, then kicked and punched until the enemy were dead. The officer had been downed already with a thrown brick; one of the few armed marchers shot down the last marine, to cheers. _

_Another snarling ork thrust a handgun at Fighter; she had to break his arm. That ork went down in the crowd, as the rumble of Komatsu APCs drowned the clamour and the rout truly broke._

_Susan ran with the mob. She was battered, almost crushed, but it was the faces–men, women and falling children–that broke her with horror. In the storm drain where she crawled and hid from the company of marines that swept in, and never stopped shooting, she curled up around her knees._

_What had she done? What had she been doing? What would she do? She was a murderer, weak and stupid. She'd be hunted. For her life, for her soul, she couldn't go back. She had to do something different. Be something completely different, again–wasn't that freedom? Wasn't willing death and rebirth the warrior's path of her father? There was Harry…but she couldn't face him now, or Ilsa._

_There'd been a terrified dwarf crammed in the storm drain with her. When the pounding boots had moved on, she'd asked if he knew anything of the orks she'd killed. Names? Families? Resistance groups? The dwarf shook, when she mentioned Norton's Army._

_"Please. Tell me where. I'm not your enemy, I killed those marines…I mean…they'll kill me if I'm an enemy, won't they? That's all I want."_

_"…the Emperor is in the town of Colma. Woodlawn." The dwarf's smile was sickly as the clinging stench, "A crazy like you should love the place."_

_-0-_

_Travelling by night, hitching or on foot, Susan hiked down the peninsular to the town of Colma. She heard few IJM rotorcraft in the sky–Saito's men must have assumed an ex-shadowrunner would go to ground in the city. She spent more time hiding in dusty ditches from every metahuman farmhand on the roads._

_Her PDA had been broken, which saved the trouble. She'd stolen some proper shoes, a medkit and a large blanket on her way, leaving her credstick in return. Her heels and modest-but-eyecatching top had been shredded; the blanket covered her body. Also, it would disguise her from Governor Moonbeam and the other spy satellites. Even after the medkit, her wound looked angry–but her head was too light, and her broken will was too strong, to stop and think. She was going to Colma._

_The City of the Silent. Susan trudged past darkened lawns and lines of trees, withered by the emissions of distant Corp factories. She made out the odd huddle of houses through the gloom, but ahead there were rank upon rank of black tombstones._ _Then a high arch announced the entrance to Woodlawns Cemetery._

_Millions of San Francisco's dead–Susan learnt later–had poured into the town of Colma for burial, for a hundred years. The walls were rotten with moss; faceless stone angels loomed. Susan could feel that she was watched–but in the silence, she only heard the dead._

_She heard the screams of the marchers, shot around her–the desperate cries of the ones she had killed. Then eternal silence, of all the foes she'd killed and the chummers she'd never save. Whatever Emperor ruled in Colma, this was her path of death and her place. It sang to her weary heart._

_The gates howled apart through rust. Between tombs like endless prison bars, white faces peered and vanished. Fear of ghosts, since the Awakening, was only plain sense. Susan felt the whispers through the astral; it was no surprise when figures stepped out ahead of her. Three orks, a troll, with shotguns or hunting rifles. More of them, still hidden. And a shaman, with piercings that covered his bare chest and face._

_"The dead told us you came. The stars told us you would come." The ork's eyes rolled savagely, "Signs in the sky! Norton lives!"_

_"Norton lives." A few orks mumbled. Most stayed silent, pinched and grim as starving ghouls–but only looking on Susan with wariness._

_"My name is Fighter," She raised both hands. Her voice was tired but unafraid, "I was at the march in the Mission District. I killed your people. I'm sorry. I was…I'm just sorry. If their families are here, I want to meet them. I swear on my father's honour, I'm not going to hurt you any more."_

_"No hurting here. No killing here, with the dead. No humans, to hurt us and kill!"_

_Now Susan was afraid. More metahumans were gathering from among the graves; a staring, whispering army. She had come to them, as she had to; she couldn't fight. Now they surrounded her, in the darkness. They could do anything with her they wanted._

_It was howling terror not to fight and kill, again and again…but she would lose her will, her self. She'd killed innocents, couldn't go back. She was too trembling weak to run, after all she'd done and suffered…but if she was not a hate-crazed trog killer, this was where she had to stand._

_"She's an enemy–!"_

_"A human–?"_

_"…at march. She kill the drekhead marines!"_

_"Bring her to Norton! Norton lives!"_

_"There is no need to trouble his Majesty's serenity with this sordid case," The harsh voice of a troll, "It is with silence and secrecy that our home is defended–from the hate and lies of humanity, so-called."_

_Susan gazed through the uproar at the block of stone on which the dark-bearded, carefully spoken troll had rested his claw. She read the carved letters in the moonlight._

_Norton I. Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico. Joshua A. Norton. 1819-1880._

_It took an Adept's control for Susan to fight down her terror. She was frozen water; still. Silent, as she was questioned and prodded. Until a shriek came through the throng; _she killed my son!_ Susan instantly threw down her forehead in the grave-dirt at the ork woman's feet._

_"I'm sorry…!"_

_"You think that can help my boy, now? You fragging slant-eyed squishy! We went back to the City, for that fragging march, because he thought we could be with humans in peace! And I thought maybe my son wouldn't have to hide for his life in a graveyard–but then you fragging Kung Fu-ed him, broke his neck!"_

_"I'm sorry. I was wrong…"_

_The wall of orks glaring down at her grovelling submission–her back, her backside, her neck–was torture for Susan. But the worse weight was what she done. Her life. She had chosen to kill, for money, and then for nothing, rather than feel so weak and afraid. Now the ork mother was drawing back a kick, at her face. She prayed it would end soon, and with death– _

_"OUR FATHER! WHO art in HEAVEN! Forgive us our SINS! AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO SIN AGAINST US!"_

_The crowd was silent. Susan looked up. Strutting from the shadows, arm upraised, was a human. A bearded old man, wild-eyed but unashamedly upright. More like a mystic than any king since the day of Caractacus the Briton. The Emperor Norton II was shabbily resplendent in an old UCAS Army blue dress uniform. Two hulking black dogs loped out beside him. They stared at Susan but did not growl._

_The bearded troll quickly muttered in Norton's ear, with a vizier's manner, as the Emperor rested his other hand on the royal headstone. Without paying the least attention, the Emperor Norton addressed his people._

_"My loved, loyal and suffering subjects! Sisters and brothers, in historic destiny! Let vengeance be stilled, for half of a quarter of a minute, at this moment of fate!"_

_A number of shamans screamed for silence. The metas were American subjects, so they didn't kneel, but they listened._

_"Two hundred years ago, peoples from every nation on Earth came to this bright and storied land. They built up free California, together, on gold, silver and steel. Even then, they came in quest of hope and security–those rights that the humblest soul of our sore-afflicted nation cannot be denied–from as far afield as CHINA! And yet those industrious immigrants were mocked, exhorted and pursued with hatred, in those days! How senseless, to persecute their brothers for nothing but appearance!" Bitter, gravelly laughter, "How senseless, when they came offering no violence, in earnest and humble trust!" No laughter. Muttering, "Has affliction driven pity from our hearts? Must the cycle of revenge consume us all? For these times, the gods have appointed certain men to be kings! To show a brighter way, and to stand in the gap!"_

_With eyes brighter than all the gold, neon and madness in California, Norton stood in front of Susan. The ork mother snarled, but stepped back, as the huge dogs moved beside him. The Emperor spread his arms._

_"Two hundred years ago, our royal forefather reigned in San Francisco. It was his deepest wish, as it has always been our own, that our subjects of every metatype, race or degree should live one and all in safety, dignity and peace! Undivided by factions and policlubs, undisturbed by fear! When San Franciscan, human mobs, in hatred and rage, purposed to burn down Chinatown–our honoured forefather stood unarmed and alone, between the people and their victims! His only shield that day were these words, and I say them again–and again, though you tear apart your king! Our Father, who art in Heaven, forgive us our SINS! AS WE FORGIVE–!"_

_"–THOSE WHO SIN AGAINST US!"_

_"Hail Norton!"_

_"Norton lives!"_

_"Signs in the sky!"_

_"Down with Saito!"_

_Confused as the roar was, it was for Norton, and loud enough to empty the graves. Susan saw the old man almost weeping, as he stood in his crazy, beautiful destiny._

_The troll advisor was dark browed and silent. The ork mother was completely unpersuaded, but with Norton's further urging backed by the crowd, and Susan refusing to get up until she had forgiveness, she eventually and insincerely received it. Along with a full and fervent royal pardon, a heavy face lick from the dogs, who Norton grandly introduced as Bummer and Lazarus–and some much-needed healing magic for the infected wound in her arm. Though she had fallen into an exhausted slumber well before that._

_-0-_

_Over almost the next two months, Susan got to know the sizable metahuman community that had fled occupied San Francisco for the shunned Colma necropolis. Squatting in mausoleums, taming spirits as look-outs, pitching their tents among the graves. Norton's Army went armed, but their only visible resistance was to preserve their own lives and dream of better, which certainly wasn't the worst kind._

_There were many shamans, or very American wingnuts, who would probably have been living in a tent and babbling about signs under any kind of society. There were even wannabe-metas with implanted tusks or ears, viciously detested by all. But the peculiar leadership of Norton II, Emperor of the United Canadian and American states, Protector of Aztlan, ensured that reasonable peace reigned in Colma._

_Susan believed that Norton's Army had found Norton–musing over the first Norton's grave, perhaps–rather than that he'd gathered the army. His past life and real link to his 'royal forefather' were a total mystery. Susan thought that almost all his 'people' knew his claims were insane, but still believed. Norton believed, with everything that was left of his mind, and that was all his band of lost and battered metahumans wanted._

_Even human spouses and children of metas were welcomed; it was unlike any place that Susan had imagined. She realised that on her second day, when she heard the cry go up that Humanis militia from the countryside had raided an outlying camp. Four orks had been killed; the human wife and daughter of one of them had been taken. There was going to be a pursuit._

_Susan hadn't at all recovered, but she knew what she had to do now. She staggered up from her bedroll and jumped onto a flatbed beside the orks and trolls with shotguns. Norton's troll advisor–Shavarus–led the party. Susan quickly learned that the security and running of Norton's Army entirely proceeded from the troll with the black, plaited beard and devastating magic._

_They rescued both the women, though their eyes brought Susan nothing but sorrow for them, and rage. They killed enough Humanis thugs that they wouldn't be soon attacked again. Norton personally commended each fighter, handing out flowers borrowed from graves in lieu of medals, which Susan could barely stand. What was being done for the women, or the others the dead had left? But it had rall remind her that killing people could be a worthwhile profession. And some orks and trolls already looked on her with the trust of fellow fighters._

_That evening, she endured Norton interviewing her at length about the state of San Francisco, problems of Seattle's Chinese community, and the general trials of young people in the inner metroplexes. He did seem genuinely concerned, even aggrieved, as he stated that something would have to be done._

_"Yes, but _what_? I mean, your Majesty…I'm so grateful you forgave what I did. But I need to help your people, somehow, or 'sorry' is just a word."_

_"Words have power, in a world of magic, dear lady," Norton magnanimously passed over her brusqueness, "The word 'Emperor' is the twin font both of these vexing troubles of state, and the dignity which enable me to bear them. We all have our troubles, dear Fighter, and some of us must search for our vocations."_

_It was a lot of kindly spoken hot air, but something made Susan consider it. She looked up. _

_"…your Majesty…what do you think of self-defence? I mean, could I…?"_

_-0-_

_Kung Fu classes in Colma gently took off like a dream. The first evening, Susan waited on the lawn between two graveyards until a young troll girl lumbered up, and said she wanted to learn how to defend herself. Susan stared up past two feet at the troll's curved horns, but she guided her one-on-one through the basic stances and blows. Correcting her posture, she told her not to hunch her shoulders like she was afraid._

_Her name was Sarah. After a few evening talks, she told Susan why she wanted to learn self-defence; what three drunken marines with guns had done to her a year ago, when she'd been fifteen. Susan spent the whole night holding Sarah, sometimes weeping into her massive bosom and shoulders. She swore she would do anything to protect the troll girl that she could._

_"No good." Sarah sobbed, "No good for me to learn to fight. I'm a fragging troll, but I couldn't fight them! How could I ever fight like you, and kill them like you...?"_

_"Fight your own fear. Fight your weakness. I'll teach you. I'll fight with you..."_

_More orks, trolls and dwarfs were attending her classes by then. Susan didn't trust herself to demonstrate sparring (killing punches weren't an easy habit to break, when they were your life). But she found, again, her talent for seeing what students needed and speaking it to their hearts. Such varied metahuman figures stepping through patterns in unison made for a funny, happy sight. T__he mother and daughter who'd been abducted eventually came, but they were helped more by evening talks with Susan and Sarah. The four women clasped hands and let each other cry as much as they talked. Susan let herself feel helpless and weak, loving and loved._

_"How do you do it?" She once asked the ork woman whose son she'd killed, "When drek happens, and there's nothing you can do?"_

_"Always something you can do, squishy. You go on living."_

_The ork waved further apologies away. She'd heard something of Susan's past from Sarah, and unhappily accepted that she was a killer, not a murderer. Susan watched the woman's heavy, worn figure stump away among the headstones._

_Kung Fu taught more than kicks and stances; it was control, persistence and strength. Young orks and dwarfs had been beaten and driven out, victims of the world; Susan taught them to never give up. There was hope in their eyes, trust and unity–and Susan was proud to share it with them all. The strong and the weak, the grim and the crazy; survivors and true friends. When she thought that she'd hated all ork and trolls once, she felt like weeping with present happiness among the graves. She was happier than with anything else she'd done._

_Although she sent a note to Ilsa with one of her new chummers, leaving Colma would've been difficult. Norton had the idea that the miraculous Chinese girl he'd saved–his Unarmed Combat Instructor by Royal Appointment–was essentially tied into his imperial destiny. Hence, he attended earnestly to Shavarus' advice about security risks. Susan well remembered how Norton's humour could alter the mood of his followers; she consoled herself that she wouldn't have wanted to leave just yet._

_About a fortnight before the man she still dreamt of arrived at the Embarcadero, Susan had spent the morning on guard duty, and the afternoon walking Bummer and Lazarus with some ork kids. The dogs were some of her best friends in Colma–more golden-hearted than even their master, with a lot more sense. The ork kids soon saw they weren't so scary. She playfully clipped one cheeky tyke who offered to date her when he was older, and waved them home with a smile. Then she flopped down on a bench behind some shading trees, where Shavarus was reading a little book called _The Jew of Malta_._

_"Hey." She smiled easily at the troll, "So, did you learn magic at university, or what?"_

_"What respectable college would admit a trog? Fortuitously, for myself, at least, talent and willpower are the only essentials of magic. What I had to learn, I worked for myself. We have this much in common, Fighter; when I believe that 'something must be done', I see that it is."_

_"Okay. Are we all ready for Humanis attacking again…?"_

_"There is no security in defence. Peace can only come through an utterly decisive attack." _

_"You're talking about striking back, aren't you? Okay. If it won't hurt Norton's Army, or the People's University, or innocent people…what's your plan?"_

_"No. Will you defend metahumans from hatred and murder, by any means necessary?"_

_"Look, I want to know what it is before–!"_

_"Do we not bleed? Are not metahumans the injured, raped, banished people you have slaughtered with your hands? They must be protected. You must protect them, by any and every means that I command. It is your fate to protect the metahuman–by the slaughter of the human vermin. The destruction of San Francisco. Do we not bleed?"_

_"Yes. Yes."_

_(The troll's voice washed through Susan's brain like acid. She tranced, her mind dropped away from body and the grasp of magic, to fight for control. But Sarah, Anya, Orion, didn't all of them bleed…?)_

_"Yes. You are a strong human–but I am a troll. You have despised the superior race too long. It is fitting that you kneel."_

_The trees hid Susan from the path. She knelt. Shavarus' claw curled over her hair–then he pushed her into the ground. Her face came up half-stunned and bloodied. Eyes dull._

_"I am stronger than you could possibly be, my Fighter. The false rule of humanity will fall. Yes, this is right…"_

_Obedient to the troll's growled command, Susan kissed his sandaled feet. __Choked; they were like plates of dust. Towering __above her, Shavarus shut his eyes in intense satisfaction._

-0-

**2052, Club Eclipse, San Francisco (Harry 'Hotspur' Fawkes)**

Orion sat with Harry in his tiny safe-room at Eclipse. He waited, as the young Runner sunk in silence, clutching his undone headband, for as long as he could.

"I had another family; years before I met Anya's mother. Three sons, my daughter…my wife, Bea. Violence against metahumans was everywhere; I couldn't get strong enough fast enough, before they came for us. Three humans held me down, after they'd killed my boys and shot me. Then I had to watch what the mob did to my girls. The shame of failing them, their faces…but I swore I would never look away from them. I would help them heal, however long it took…but the humans cut their throats when they had finished, so I could not."

"You killed those fraggers…?"

"I killed many humans; it did me little good in myself. I had to love another woman, and lose her, also…but your girl is alive, Hotspur. You will find her and free her. Never look away from her."

"How could I…? I love her. But I couldn't do anything. How could I ever look her in the eye?"

"You must be stronger for her, now, and set yourself aside. Whatever she needs, however much it hurts–if you are anything you have ever sought to be, love her now."

It was nothing but words. It was all they had. Harry barely had the strength to wipe his own eyes. He stared into the ork's dark, rough face.

News of the pyramid Run had broken quickly. In the lobby of Eclipse, vendors tapped at winking screens and PDAs; some offloading their stock in Pyramid Holdings, others piling it up. Runners in the bar upstairs were leaving no contact unturned to discover who they needed to kill for the missing paydata. While Ilsa and Hailey were in Kali's office, informing her that the paydata had been snatched from them by Susan Lei–

"–who you believed would sell it to you, I presume, after you'd sent us in as decoys for her?" Ilsa pursed her lips, "I'm afraid that depends on us releasing her from the magical control of an apparently-insane troll terrorist."

The music mogul stared at her desk. She finally smacked it with both hands and looked up with a snarl on her purple lips.

"This is as fragged up as it could be. If these Runners are with the metas, they won't sell the proof against the Azzies to anyone! They'll blackmail Aztechnology for more bombs, keep the Corp war in San Fran dragging on, and every single Japanese Megacorp will blame me. And you. _What the frag do you plan to do about this?_"

"Retrieve the paydata, and rescue your errant singer for a bonus." Ilsa's coolness was unshaken, "We'll need an advance on our final payment, and any information you have on Norton's Army. As you astutely noted, your life depends on our success."

"…ask any metahumans left in the Mission District. Or there was that elf Tarne, he might've been linked to them. Your boyfriend, wasn't he, chica?"

Ilsa stared at Hailey, who shook her head; _her_ cool was completely blown. Kali's eyes were hungry and dangerous as she slid the credstick over her desk.

"Do not frag everything up for me again," she whispered, "Or Renraku, Shiawase and Mitsuhama will not be the first in line to geek you."

_"Yeah, no frag ups. We're going to get our fragging chummer back."_ Anya hissed in their earpieces, after they'd left the office. Ilsa nodded, hard.

Kali was far from the worst threat she'd faced. All the gaudy screens and holograms in Eclipse seemed some of the least significant things, compared to the unforgivable horror that Susan, her friend, was still held in. Nothing she might burnt could've be enough for that. But the waste remained and killed. Nyuyen, ambition and progress added up to murder, rape and xenocide. She meant to remain in this city, unless that meant leaving Susan alone, ever again.

"Yeah!" Hailey tried to sound bright. "We'll save her, before…I mean she _couldn't_…that doesn't happen to shadowrunners, does it?"

_"Shouldn't happen to anybody."_ Anya grated.

"No sin but ignorance. No good comes from it." Ilsa's voice was firm, "Whatever has been done to Susan, we will deal with it when we know, and when we find her."

"Yes. We will."

Harry's headband was retied, his sword sheathed in his hand. His eyes were feverish, but steady. Someday, heroes had to face what they feared.

And Hailey had to admit that Tarne was her missing friend, she had told Susan about him and that was probably why she'd gone to the march.

"I know I should have gone with her. I'm sorry."

"No need." Harry touched her shoulder, "You couldn't have done anything but get yourself hurt. Did Tarne have any chummers involved with the resistance?"

His calm shocked Ilsa and even Orion. Hailey would have swooned, but they were still on the Run. She produced a PDA photo of Tarne's friend Voire, a sullen-looking blonde who had talked even more loudly and often about fighting back in some way.

"Probably not the smart way," Harry recognised the photo, "This guy was about to throw down with a squad of marines, the day I got here."

"Voire?" Hailey put her hand to her cheek, "He always, like, took stuff to heart, but he's not stupid! He even stopped talking about resistance, since Tarne vanished."

"Hatred gathered to heart obscures the mind," Orion grated, "And when it can no longer be vented in speech, the explosion is close at hand. I've seen it too many times. If this boy knows anything of Norton's Army, we should be quick about finding him."

It was soon determined that Voire had last been seen leaving the club for the Mission District. No one in the know expected him to be long among the living.

"The Mission District, then. To find Norton's Army, or this wannabe-militant pretty boy."

"Very well." Ilsa responded, "And if we hear a march, a bomb, or gunfire–"

"We head towards the noise," Harry's smile was grim, "We find this elf before he finds some marines to get killed by. Then we go to Susan, wherever she is."


	6. The Colonel of San Francisco

_A/N: For the record, the Japanese did not bring freedom and honour to East Asia in World War II. Tarawa and Iwo Jima could conceivably be called heroic last stands, but the battle of Manilla was a pointless massacre. In the world of Shadowrun, however, the historical revisionists have won. Nothing that follows is intended as a pejorative general description of real-world Japanese people, Americans, orks, trolls, elves or dwarves._

* * *

_The people are the castle, the people are the stones, the people are the moat! Love for your comrades, hatred for your enemies! Lay down your corpses to be your walls, lay down your corpses to bridge the moat. Attack your enemy on the corpses of your comrades, and victory will be yours!_

–Itto Ogami, _Lone Wolf and Cub_

_(A/N:One of the most senseless things ever said by the greatest samurai who will ever live)_

* * *

Voire Berg wouldn't have been described as a fanatical and murderous militant by his friends–though the news reports after the fact did, with a forged Net history to prove it. His many friends would have said he was a typically charismatic and adjusted, somewhat mercurial, elf. Close friends, or particularly insightful ones like Hailey, would have added that he did indeed take things to heart.

Voire and his chummers were all SINless metas who'd never lived anywhere but the Mission District. Coming home, with an SMG under his jacket, Voire walked past the towering street mural he'd led his friends to make in their teens. The park with the high steps for skateboarding, where he'd broken his arm. The basement where he'd cooked crack with the Publeo shaman who'd taught him street magic. The alley where he'd lost his cherry, with that cute Guatemalan busboy he'd met in…yeah, that Aztlan café, corner of Delfina street.

"Our streets. Our homes. Our castle."

At his side, Tarne smiled like a cat. Behind him, Hector and Nick, with the other orks and dwarves, muttered agreement. They were moving in the sprawling, blocky shadow of the San Francisco Armoury, a hundred-year old fortress. The spires of the newer basilica, beside the old mission, were visible through the houses painted with street art and decked with Spanish balconies.

In the glare of the sunset–a dip in the ground kept San Francisco's famous mist out of the Mission–Voire's eyes settled on a fresh graffitied wall–KILL THE METAS. He'd grown up breaking bread and sharing burritos with the humans in the Mission. Now they blamed him for the armed Japanese on American streets and wanted to kill him. If any human had been on the street so close to curfew, he might have unloaded on them in that moment and not felt unjustified.

Their best answer to the ambitions of a superpower backed by Megacorps to throw them out their homes into a slum, and to do with them whatever the frag they wanted after that, had not been easily found (There _had to be _an answer, if they weren't the bummers and brutes the Japs claimed). Arm themselves and dig in? The Megacorp-owned TriD stations would call them street gangs.

Voire had spent a week in Colma, with Tarne. The dark, quiet elf had claimed–Voire had believed–that Norton might rally an army to sweep the Japanese into the sea. If something could change his fairyland pacifism into a will for power and conquest. Tarne had stayed to work with the many in Norton's Army who felt the same way, while Voire had returned to rally the metas in the city. He'd hoped the Mission District march would be the tip of the wave. That day had convicted him again that humans and words would never protect his people from murderous hate.

Then Tarne had returned, with the weapons they held now and a plan. He'd always come up with the plan, while Voire had rallied the gang to it, since they'd been kids. The blonde elf barely felt the sorrow of Tarne's straightness next to the wide and burning cause that they shared. They were the ones who _did something_, when the fascists came for their neighbours; they were the vanguard of revolt. In the heart of San Francisco, where the Japs believed they were unassailable.

"I'll set up there." Tarne indicated the wrapped hunting rifle on his back, and a high balcony shrouded by washing, "Five minutes to curfew. Occupy the marines that come with some drek. When I fire, mow them down, then run. No martyrs today, _hombres_. Stay alive to kill another squad next week."

"If we cut the fraggers enough, will they not fragging bleed to death?" Nick had always thought of himself as a literary dwarf. Hector, an Aztlaner ork, looked more wary but as eager as Voire did. The others–three orks, one troll–hugged their weapons and stifled fear.

"You watch yourself, chummer." Voire grinned at Tarne and embraced him–not for the last time, he swore, "If we were too good-looking to die, then elves would live forever."

Tarne grinned back–actually pecked him on the cheek–and then hurried to his position. Five minute later, Voire and his chummers stepped out from the shadow of the Armoury. In five more minutes, after the 1900 curfew had silenced every bar and alley in the Mission, a section of black armoured marines had appeared. H&K assault rifles held ready.

"Clear the streets, you vermin!" Barked the sergeant in the lead.

"Where are we supposed to go?" Voire shouted back, "We live here!"

Hector and Nick half-raised their hands; near to the guns in their jackets. Voire spread his arms. He had a spell ready.

"Go back to your ratholes. Or take your schemes and your drugs out of 'Frisco!"

"NOBODY CALLS THIS CITY _'FRISCO_! OUR CITY! NOT YOURS! We grew up on these streets, we scored our first rocks here, got laid here! This is our home, we're not rats for you to drive out! You marines are the fragging terrorists–but we're not afraid!"

A second squad of marines was heading toward them, down the cross-street. Twelve enemies. Voire gritted his teeth, let his anger drown his fear, and shouted again; they were not afraid.

-0-

"They are brave amateurs." Orion hissed to Harry and Ilsa, as they watched the scene from an alley, "No reconnaissance, virtually all in the open, inviting attack from two sides by making their stand on a junction! A proper ambush could have defeated a platoon."

"Teenage gangers couldn't hide a real ambush," Ilsa hissed back, "They would run now, except that their chummers would see it. A senseless waste."

"Maybe not." Harry had his hand on his sword, "We're their ambush, aren't we?"

The blonde elf and the marine sergeant were still screaming at each other. Half of the marines had their guns levelled, the rest were professionally scanning their surroundings. Hailey couldn't understand why Tarne hadn't fired yet. She absolutely could not understand why Voire–a friend who had carried her home from parties and pretended to laugh at her beloved funny cat trideos–was committing suicide before her eyes.

"Couldn't I, like, try and talk him down? He's my friend." She was white-faced, but her voice was steady, "I've got to try…"

"No. And if we kill marines, we will be unable to remain in this city–"

_"Ding! A dozen freshly hacked bodycams."_ Anya chirped smugly, _"Just get them all, if you've got to fight, and don't get killed–"_

Ilsa was already flicking a Haste spell over Harry, and a Flamestrike through an alert soldier's chest. By reflex, Voire flung his manaball into the second squad and his chummers let rip. From long training, the marines opened fire without a second for shock.

"_AKU SOKU ZAN!_"

The sergeant went down riddled with lead, still screaming. The troll was shredded by bullets, and an ork; then Hotspur cut two armoured bodies with one slash. Orion, just ahead, finished one of them with a punch. He side-kicked another marine to the street. A black coal-scuttle helmet spun away.

The second squad–unbroken by the manaball or anything else–were dropping to the ground, into the cover of benches and hydrants, all of them firing. Orion dived behind a parked ricksaw as bullets cut him; even Adepts couldn't dodge every shot at this range. Another ork went down and Nick fell, gutshot and howling.

Voire ducked behind the bench as a marine with a spitting rifle hunched at its opposite end. Choking on bullets and his chummer's blood, Voire steeled his fingers and threw out a Flamestrike, screaming for vengeance. He only wished he'd learnt to Heal as well as kill.

The marines' magical specialist, better prepared, swept the burns from Voire's target with a gesture. Screaming, _For Saito-San!_ she cast her own Flamestrike at Ilsa–whose counterspell fizzled.

Magic was a dubious but necessary tool to the marines, not a universe of wonder. Their specialists learnt two spells only–and mastered those two until their fingers bled. Ilsa would have been burnt down without even knowing this, if Hotspur hadn't leapt before the blast, quick as wind. He was scorched, a bullet hit him as he stood, but his shield of Ki turned back the flames.

Hailey's drone shot the marine Mage in the shoulder. Ilsa threw a Heal spell after Hotspur as he charged again, then more flames. Hector actually clipped Orion with a pellet from his sawed-off, but the Runners and the militants fell on the remaining marines like a landslide. They died where they stood.

"Drekheads…" Voire spat. Now his hands were shaking unstoppably–but a grin was locked on his lips, as he stared at the Runners. The redhaired Mage was casting Heal on Nick. He was alive. They were alive, and–_Hailey_ was marching out of an alley, through the bodies. The girl he'd told to become a kiddie's TriD show host or a cryptologist, just not a shadowrunner, because he and Tarne did not want her to die–and where was Tarne–?

"Voire, what are you doing? Why? This is nothing but killing people! Killing yourselves!"

"Giving our lives for freedom!" It was harder to say with blood underfoot, but that only hardened Voire's snarl, "The fragging Japs are going to exterminate us one day, unless we show them we're not animals!"

"Like this? Voire, remember the mural we did, humans, elves and orks together! Or the Clarion street block party, or that all-night rave at the Elbo Room! Our city used to be about music, dreams and fun, now the streets are full of people who want to shoot each other!"

Harry moved to hold Hailey back. While the surviving metas, high on victory, moved to stamp on the dead soldiers' faces and fire into their bodies.

Then one wounded body rolled over. The marine had a grenade in one hand, and a pin.

"_Nihon banzai_…"

Ilsa dropped so hard her glasses cracked. Harry shoved Hailey down beneath him. Orion rose and moved, faster than Harry had ever seen, and _kicked_. The bomb flew up and away from the marine's shattered hands, before it blew.

Voire slumped in the street, stunned and uncomprehending. Hailey could not let go of Harry's chest or stop crying. Orion and the other metas had been knocked flat by the blast. One of them didn't get up–but Orion did. Swaying like a bell, but still moving, he gazed down at the sobbing marine.

"Such reckless hatred. Yet you will never defeat the ork with old lies, or mindless faith."

"You want to die?" Hector snarled at the broken man. He aimed his shotgun–then a bullet punched through his skull. A third squad had rushed onto the street, further down; the squad marksman instantly dropping on one knee to fire.

Another bullet hit Harry's shoulder, before he shoved Hailey off him, grabbed her hand and ran, kicking Voire into flight as he went. Orion and Ilsa gave covering fire. Nick, the wounded dwarf, was all that was left of Voire's ambush party. He and Hailey both shouted that they couldn't leave Tarne, whatever had happened to him, but Harry shouted back at them both to run.

_"Dad,"_ Anya's voice crackled with feeling, _"Never, never, NEVER–!"_

"I'm sorry, princess. Never again, unless it is needed."

_"Stupid…"_ Anya was silent in cyberspace for some time.

"Please, Voire, don't do this again," Hailey got out, "You're my friend, you're smarter than this stupid, stupid…"

"You're a human, Hailey." She flinched from the word, "Only humans can talk about fault on both sides, or the cycle of violence, when you don't know what it's like to live under a cloud of death!"

"You're right–but I know what it's like to live. And I absolutely want you keep living, Voire. You and Tarne."

The elf looked away, shaking. Ilsa and Orion watched Hailey fall into an agony of worry over her dark and quiet beloved–and exchanged foreboding looks.

-0-

Lieutenant Kanji Arai IJM stared at the bodies of twelve Japanese marines, a block away. His lips were taunt as wire, watching the white boy in a red headband–the _ronin_ from Club Eclipse–running for an alley.

"Shadowscum. _Aku soku zan!_"

The marines dealt swift death to evil; swiftly as his Nissan rifle's smartlink fed trajectory and windspeed back to his cybereyes, he fired. His first shot caught the _ronin's_ shoulder. The second flashed past as he ran. The smartlink placed the third in the red headband's path–then a half-brick flung from the shadows hit his shoulder, and the Runners were gone.

Stones and bricks bounced off the marine squad's armour. Arai caught a human face at a window. His years of deployment had taught him that the distinction between a foreign invading army, and their failing state's last hope for order and dignity, did not come easy to the lower-class American mind. And with marines laid out dead, the invaders no longer seemed invincible.

A hidden San Franciscan was screaming; _Humanis fraggers_! The dead marines on the street had scorned the safe comfort of Renraku office jobs, to protect that ingrate from metahuman thugs. For this, the Imperial Marines were called a racist hate-gang! Rage almost consumed Arai's judgement–almost.

"Fire into the air!" He yelled at his men, "Warning shots only!"

Takahashi was at his side with a Healing spell. Arai quickly pushed his fresh-faced young specialist into cover. Two other green recruits were staring and shaking, fearing another ambush. Arai yelled at them as he stitched a line of bullets above an open window.

"Do you want to see our comrades' bodies stripped and dragged through the streets, on the Net? Move forward!"

"I see one man's aura, sir." Takahashi peered into the Astral, "He has survived…"

"Poor devil. Treat him."

Rifles up, the marines moved down the sunlit, bloody street, to hold it until reinforced. The squad Matrix specialist swiftly uploaded images through her datajack. The bodies of the insurgents, for identification and arrest of any known families–the tip of a wave of interments that would be sweeping the Mission District within hours. Also, their high-end SMGs and handguns.

"None of them linked to terrorist groups, Lieutenant, sir." She soon reported, "Street scum, armed by a hostile power. Their weapons are the models used by the Aztlan military."

"So, we can at least be sure," Takahashi noted, as he Healed the sorry survivor, "That it was _not _the Aztlan savages that armed them." He and Arai shared a quick smile.

The marines' bodies were lined up, for collection, cremation and repatriation. Their comrades would toast their honoured memories, but occupation casualties were not publicised in the home islands. Their families would mourn in quiet dignity, as was their duty, and continue to humbly work ten-hour days for Renraku, Mitsuhama and Shiawase. Duty, conformity and discipline had made modern Japan the greatest nation on Earth. Arai and Takahashi were proud to offer their lives for her honour.

The first Komatsu APC was barrelling towards them, twin-linked Shiawase Nemesis LMGs gleaming from its turret. A second before it happened, Arai _felt it_–but he could do nothing to hold it back.

The blast threw all of them down, as it cracked through the street. Arai looked up at the APC on its side, broken like a toy. Marines were stumbling from the doors–he screamed at his men to cover them–even the wounded would have medkits and cyberlimbs. But a downed APC in the heart of 'Frisco was a message. An attack.

_"Zettai ni yurusenai!"_ He hissed. Unforgivable–for the enemy and himself. If the first attackers had been pro terrorists his comrades would have been careful. But they had been street thugs armed with Aztlan guns, by the unseen foe with mil-spec anti-tank mines. The enemy that had read their moves and struck _Ippon_, one point.

Arai had dropped his rifle, but his hand went to the hilt of his dikoted katana. His other hand found Takahashi's, clasped him–his love saw no surrender in his eyes, and kissed his fingers quickly. It was against fraternisation rules, it was insane–but they might die on this street, and their squad likewise had more to worry about.

The marines guarded the street full of corpses, firing into every threatening windowless house on the block, in the unyielding shadow of the armoury. For as long as it took, until there was order and sanity.

-0-

"These eighteen warriors, eighteen shattered jewels–these Imperial Japanese Marines!–have honoured us with their magnificent end. Death held no fear to their noble minds. Duty and honour were their higher path. To blast the scum of the Earth to pieces, to rip up the enemy's guts with bullets, to kill with fists and teeth to the last–they chose death, and lived undefeated, with not a single regret! A single marine is worth ten thousand lesser men! Proudly, with honour, I mean to take _sake_ with these men and women on the lotus throne of paradise.

"Such men as these held back the barbarian hordes on Tsushima, until the divine wind blew their foes to oblivion. Such men as these bled, worked and died to bring freedom and honour to East Asia, in this century and the last! And when rapacious invaders had swept to the very threshold of our homeland–when soldiers starved in body but mighty in spirit made their stand on Iwo Jima–it was men such as these who sought death in their final charge! That the sun might rise once more untarnished, over the land of the gods!"

Every barracks across the Baysprawl rang with the cheers. Colonel Keiji Saito's shaved head and warlord's moustache glared from every screen. From the shameful opening to the West, through the indelible nightmare of World War II, to the economic collapse of the 90s, Japan had been lain low time and again–yet always risen to bestride the world, as it now did unassailably. The devoted labourers of her Megacorps and military, dizzied by success, could hardly disbelieve that their nation was indeed ordained by heaven to rule over all.

"Marines, be proud of your work!" Saito's voice rolled on, "Be happy in your work! Ours is the just cause of a great nation, to teach discipline to squabbling children! I order you to value your lives, as you serve with honour–do not seek death until you have each killed a hundred enemies! Officers; take care of your men. Men; protect your officers! Remember your lives are worth ten thousand _thousand_ of the treacherous metahuman vermin in their slums. Happily and unstintingly, use grenades and firebombs in your work, and our most subhuman foes will learn to fear us! In life, in death–_AKU SOKU ZAN!_"

_"AKU SOKU ZAN!"_

_"Nihon banzai!"_

_"Saito-Taisa, banzai!"_

They finished by singing the IJM hymn, proud to share the title with their fallen brothers of Tarawa, Manilla and San Francisco. Then the Marines dried their tears, tightened their helmets, and rolled out in their APCs to avenge them all.

-0-

Colonel Keiji Saito's private office was unsettlingly bare. There was a bleeding-edge Mitsuhama holodesk, the terminals and screens by which he managed every aspect of his command, and three pictures which he bowed to every morning. The Emperor. Hijikata Toshizo of the _Shinsengumi_, the last samurai. And Akechi Mitsuhide, the honourable traitor, from whose former lord the Saito family claimed a very slight descent. Saito's grandfather had sought to bolster this distinction by filling their home in rural Gifu with tea sets and antique swords, while the rest of Japan worked on computer science degrees. Keiji Saito had sworn to play a higher and active role in making his nation great again. His sword was mono-edged, and never left his side.

There were no books in the office, or on the computers; no drinks cabinet, no family photos (He had not spoken to his father for years, and a man of destiny had no time for marriage). Nothing that could not be inferred from the Colonel's public persona, as if the man and the role were one.

Yet how ridiculous–Saito mused, in a unique moment of introspection–if the office of Colonel Saito had boasted an American minibar, or posters for metahuman jungle music! Integrity was duty–the spiritual essence of _bushido_. Thought it was necessary that he feign to admire his commanding general's collection of sportscars and antique shotguns–bought with kickbacks from the Megacorps for strangling local companies with the curfew order and forced land sales. He must endure games of golf or interminable drinks parties with the General, and the CEOs of Renraku and Fuichi, while monsters plotted their downfall on every side! One of the other two colonels in 'Frisco even had an elf as a mistress. Saito's reaction at the private party which had been defiled with that succubus's presence had put paid to his promotion hopes for the foreseeable.

Yet when he had personally punched down and kicked a supposed marine who had wished he was back home in Osaka, rather than arresting the spawn of terrorists–his men had met his enforced public apology with frenzied cheers of support. They shared his hatred for shirkers, traitors and monsters; he loved his men and they loved him. The name of Colonel Saito was synonymous with the occupation, because he got work done.

What more could he do? The thought filled his nights and days. Chinatown stood unrazed, a false monument to Japanese tolerance, where the Triad criminals still crowded out the loyal and honourable Yakuza (Machine-gunning the San Francisco Mafia into the bay, from an extraterritorial pier, had been one of Saito's proudest moments. _Aku soku zan_). Terrorist monsters plotted in the dark slums of Oakland, nursing their evil rage–but the shadow in the North loomed above all. Tir Taingire, with its cowardly magic and false fairness, had no purpose but to charm the world into slavery and shame. The golden web of their plots reached everywhere.

The best of American humans might learn the Japanese way, in time–but inhuman, honourless monsters never would. War to the death was the only course, and the survivor would possess the world. For divine Japan, Colonel Saito had sworn to be the hero who brought that victory.

Without their terrorist pawns in Oakland and the Mission District, the powers that sent them weapons would be rendered impotent. Mushashi had noted the efficiency of terror in swordsmanship. If the monsters were too cowed by the threat of swift death to strike at his men, there might be peace. If their mindless hate trumped their cowardice, as it surely would, there was only extermination. If some metahumans were not treacherous, human-hating monsters…that was hardly relevant.

Certainly not compared to posting his commendations to Lieutenant Arai and his men, still in the field, on the official IJM Newsfeed. Also to Private Niwa praising his honourable, albeit foiled, sacrifice. The men would appreciate his personal concern for them; all his men who saw the public posting. Niwa had regrettably been too unhinged by his ordeal, despite the finest medical care, to identify his attackers. The bodycams of Arai's men had shown some metahuman scum, and human shadowrunners, whose images had been circulated to all checkpoints.

What more could he do? After a minute's thought, Saito videocalled a Captain Mori of the Marines Special Forces.

"Recent intelligence reports indicate a movement of weapons and suspected terrorists–" _Metahumans_, "–to the town of Colma. Aerial drone reconnaissance confirms a concentration of vermin. Your men are standing by, are they not, while every other marine in our division is at work on the streets?"

The Special Forces were holding to respond to any terrorists the sweeping marines did flush out, rather than frightened families. Nonetheless, Mori stood ready to follow orders without question.

"Drive them out of their ratholes, into the wilderness." Saito commanded him, "Our Humanis allies throughout the Central Valley will deal with them."

"Yes, sir. _Aku soku zan_!"

As Saito studied the recording of his own speech, like a baseball pro after a game, his men marched through Oakland shooting at any meta they saw on the streets. As Arai and Takahashi finally threw off their armour and held each other, the marines started to breach the squats of suspects and families, searching for weapons or any other threat they could kill for. And as the shadowrunners' stolen car rolled up to Woodlawn cemetery, history was moving. As if down a mag-lev rail line, to the camps that would be built, one day, in the Mojave.


	7. Kings and Monsters

_In slashing, hewing, cleaving, word and deed,_

_ I was the foremost knight of chivalry,_

_ Stout, bold, expert, as e'er the world did see;_

_ Thousands from the oppressor's wrong I freed…_

_...and though beyond the moon my soaring hope,_

_Did crown my hap with all felicity_

_Yet, great Quixote, still I envy thee._

_–_ Don Belianis of Greece_, __Preface to Don Quixote _

_-0- _

_ I'll slay more gazers than the basilisk;_

_I'll play the orator as well as Nestor,_

_Deceive more slily than Ulysses could,_

_And, like a Sinon, take another Troy._

_I can add colours to the chameleon,_

_Change shapes with Proteus for advantages,_

_And set the murderous Machiavel to school._

_Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?_

_Tut, were it farther off, I'll pluck it down._

_–_Richard III_, Henry VI part 3_

* * *

Tarne, the quiet elf, snatched a minute in a Mission District safehouse to check in with his contacts. The other guns that had not come from Aztlan were ready and in place. He had planned to snipe a marine if necessary, to ensure Voire's band of yahoos would lure out an APC response before they were all gunned down. The Runners' sudden appearance, however, had saved him the risk.

His handler had been clear with him on recruitment that lower-level assets got sacrificed, and top agents had to send even their friends into death. Tarne intended to be an agent who would not only risk his life for the destiny of his people–as his poor, expendable friend Voire had–but actually live to see it.

Another unseen asset had detonated the anti-tank mine. The Marines would all be on the streets within hours. When they were stretched thin and run ragged searching the slums for threats, the true uprising would begin. Before a final call to set up their meet with his handler, Tarne called the troll in Colma to tell him the fuse was lit.

"Good." Shavarus rumbled. The burner PDA seemed tiny in his claw, "After I deal with Norton, I will meet with your estimable friends in the morning. At the Embacadero, pier 5. Make certain you are there."

Kneeling on the mausoleum's stone floor, Susan rested her head on Shavarus' massive thigh. On their return from the pyramid she had stripped off her armour, and her clothes, as the Mage had ordered. Dark bruises marked her bare, muscled flesh. The orks who entered the mausoleum, to tell Shavarus that his followers were ready, gazed at her intently. An army of the lost and crazed needed nothing more than a leader who knew what they truly needed.

Conquerors throughout history–the troll Mage reflected–had shown their power by hunting and taming savage animals. Tigers, lions, elephants. The true mental, _moral_ strength of the ruler dominated the brute strength of beasts. What were shadowrunners but the dust-licking dogs of the Megacorps? What were the Megas but voracious, unthinking monsters upon the Earth, and what were the cities of humanity but their cattle pens? The more he thought, the harder his hatred burnt, and vengence was his only relief.

Beating his human attack dog had risked breaking a valuable tool, but he prided himself on his control–and there was healing magic. It had shown his minions the true contemptible face of humanity. An ork who'd fled to Colma, after spying for Saito on the People's University, had been thrown to the human and beaten to death. That had fed the hate and fear that humans had branded on them all.

A useful tool–but he would not be dependant. After he had reduced San Francisco to a blasted waste, he would suspend the woman called Fighter above the steps of the Armoury. Defile that cursed earth with her ripped-out entrails. Then they would see that smooth-skinned beauty and human courage were lies of the human monsters, who called the troll monstrous and ugly.

She smiled beautifully, at his command–without tusks. Shavarus kicked her to the floor as he stood.

"Humanity are the plague dogs of this planet, helplessly mired in their evil. Metahumanity is the world's new birth. The uncorrupted new dawn. It is righteous to punish human contempt with human blood!"

He pulled Fighter up by her neck; her blood-stained face lolled and stared. The orks growled deep agreement. Then walked out into the night, with the guns from Tarne's friends, at Shavarus' command. Ready to lead the army of shadows that would head for San Francisco with the dawn.

(Fighter quickly re-donned her armour before she followed. Her abuse had not only been hidden from Norton and his loyal followers, but even Shavarus' outer circle. Particularly from those of Susan's own Kung Fu students that the troll had judged worthy and ordered her to recruit.)

-0-

Like a wild west posse galloping their horses to death beneath them, the Runners ditched their van to stealth out of the City, then stole the first battered yellow Ford they found. The Net told them that the response to the Mission District ambush was rolling across the Baysprawl. Ilsa phoned contacts until commlink coverage cut out. Hailey spent the midnight drive writhing with worry for Tarne, Voire and her city.

"The People's University made plans, after the march and the last crackdowns." Ilsa reassured the young decker, "They will disrupt the Marines' communications, and get as many into hiding as they can." She didn't voice her fears that untested plans and Californian indiscipline would get some of the PU's people killed along with the metas they'd tried to protect.

At least she knew Henry would have made off to Halferville, the dwarf colony under the Caldicott range, as soon as the PU deckers had learnt of the ambush. Even history scholars who worked in Oakland-Berkeley with a banned organisation were on Saito's blacklist. Total security demanded elimination of the uncontrolled; Ilsa well understood the monstrous logic.

Orion, with a true Adept's emotional control, managed to distract Hailey with some stories of his younger shadowrunning days. She briefly unwound enough to slip into her 'Frisco-native-tour-guide mode.

"Colma's kinda spooky, but, like, in a cool way. I went ghost-spotting with some galpals, years ago; we saw some, but no one we knew. They've got Wyatt Earp, Levi Strauss, Joe DiMaggio…and I guess _two_ Emperor Nortons now. Just not many Jackpoints out in the boonies, you know…?"

_"You're coming for local knowledge, girl genius,"_ Anya chirped, _"And to keep to you out of trouble."_

The older Runners certainly had insisted that Hailey could only get herself hurt by searching for Tarne in the city, especially if she found him. Anya had insisted on following her father as well.

"…but, but what could you do in Colma, without Net coverage…?"

_"Oh yeah? You shut down the A.I. if she can't do stuff for you, and fragging-near get your own hoops killed, whatever she says! This is how robot revolutions happen, chummers! Or you could get me a drone."_

Hailey's spare RoboDoc drone had duly trundled up as they were leaving the city. Anya had swiftly transferred part of her code to it; Orion had lifted the steel box of grenades and medkits onto Hailey's lap gently.

Harry drove the stolen Ford to Colma in silence; the packed car might as well have been empty. His soul was fixed on the road in the headlights, and the memory of a smile.

When she'd watched him step through his first Kung Fu pattern, proud as a tiger. When she'd followed him into their first shadowrun, barely afraid. When she'd found him, for their one fantastical night in Hong Kong. When she'd let him leave her, standing on a harbour in Seattle. Lonely, wounded, strong. Then she had left every harbour and done so much, alone in her strength, until the fall…he could almost see her beside him. Always and never, never again…

_"Hey, stud. Don't look so worried!"_ Her dark eyes shone. The car shook in its path, as she touched his arm, _"That fragging trog never touched me. Ilsa's going to break the mind-control, we'll kill the trog together. Then we'll find a safe bedroom, and we won't leave…or need any clothes__…for at least a week. Come on! Why won't you believe in me?"_

_"Susan. Please_ _–" _

_"Yeah, sorry, idiot. I'm just the pure virgin dream girl in your head. Who only lives on in memories, since that trog sunk his claws in me. I want to touch you, but I can't_ _–too broken, too afraid. It'll be a month before I can look in your eyes, six before we can touch, and the nightmares will never end…"_

_"I'll wait. I'll do anything for you I can. Just letting an idiot like me stay with you_ _ would be the greatest act of love."_

_"You know me, Harry. You know I will always love you, no matter what; that is me. You're buried in my heart…I wish I was with you, right now. Why did you ever leave?"_

"Coming, love. Coming now…"

"I know that love is a species of insanity, Hotspur," Ilsa muttered, sat beside him, "But talking to oneself is never a good sign."

"Right, sorry. I've got it together, on the ball–" Douglas' bloody face flashed over Ilsa's, in his widening eyes. "–I fragging mean it! This time, not letting you down."

He pictured Hailey, bloodied with bullets, down in the dirt. All the chummers he'd left behind, before swearing never to lead or hope again. But then he'd seen Susan and run to her–and her friends had followed him.

"If you see Susan, run to her." Ilsa was saying, "I will take care of the team."

"Wiz? Thank you for this. You and Hailey have people you love out there, the whole city's exploding in slo-mo…but Susan's the only one we're going to save."

"Well, she needs saving. I imagine that everyone in the Baysprawl has family or a love they wish they could save tonight–you're Susan's love and we're her family. Also, we need that Azzie data, or the Japancorps will hunt us all down."

It was a happier thought than Susan mind-controlled, or that fragging troll. Harry stared back at the lights cutting into the darkness, as the car rolled on.

-0-

The screech of tyres faded into the graveyard quiet, as the shadowrunners' steps crunched towards the gates of Woodlawn. Faint voices and cries drifted from around them, barely audible over the wind in the sickly trees. Hailey's Strato-9, and RoboAnya, whirred cautiously between the gravestones to scout ahead.

"Threatcheck?" Harry hissed to Ilsa, "Ghosts, the troll, a brainwashed army…?"

"Most likely not brainwashed by magic, at least. Full, long-term control of a single being, without Blood Magic, ties up significant magical power–much like commanding a spirit. This Emperor Norton may or may not be controlled. We ourselves would be prime targets, but you and Orion should be resistant. I believe I can protect myself with a counterspell, more easily than freeing Susan, though that will be my first priority."

"Um, I could wait in the car," Hailey offered, "If I hurt any of you..."

"We stay together," Harry squeezed her arm, "And you won't hurt any of us."

Ilsa's glance lingered on Harry. After all he had endured and done, he led and hoped. He needed a team to save his love; he might have drawn them all with nothing but the passion of his path. Like a flight of wild geese, rushing together into the land of the dead.

"So, Hotspur. What is our plan?"

She saw his eyes waver. Then he straightened up and smiled, resolute. Ilsa felt a hot flush of longing (Like the torch Hailey had been carrying for 72 hours straight), that she was Susan Lei, and had never let this boy go.

(Though Hailey had been waiting in the van, after the ambush, while Voire had told them that Norton was in Colma, and he, Voire, had to vanish right now. Harry had pinned the wretched elf with a sword at his throat, telling him that he'd be fleeing the marines with a busted knee unless he told them everything he knew. A shadowrunner in love could do anything at all)

The drones had picked out four ork sentries; two arguing quietly, one visibly stoned. The lost souls, crawling along the rows in astral space, could perceive neither the drone nor Anya. No great apparent danger–apparently.

"This Norton didn't sound controlled to me," Harry pronounced, "Just crazy. I want to meet him. We bring the drones back, walk straight in, say 'take me to your leader'. If they start something–" His knuckles were white on his sword hilt, "–we finish it."

"These people are not Badges, or Megacorp lackies," Orion growled, "A community of innocents, abused–"

"I understand, but they've got guns. We don't have time to frag around."

Hotspur waited a moment, then strode forward. The rusted gate screamed open under his hand; his eyes were fixed beyond it at all his love, his hopes and his fears. Ilsa and Orion kept their eyes on his back as they followed, noting the acceleration of his breaths. Hailey swallowed her fear, raised her chin, and followed her hero towards his beloved.

The guards quickly moved towards them, shotguns up. Fearful–of this night itself as much as the intruders, Ilsa percieved. Their shaman ranted about signs of doom and disaster, grinding his tusks

Hotspur was riding so high on emotion, he could say no more than, Take me to Norton. Orion moved in, addressing the orks as brothers.

"Not brothers!" The shaman shrieked, "Ork with humans is a spy–!"

Before Hotspur could cut down every ork between him and Susan, a wall of fire sprang up between them. A cloud of fangs and decay blotted out the moon; a spirit the ork shaman would never have dared command.

"_I_ have read in the stars that we must speak with your king at once! Destiny demands it! If disaster may still be averted–unless you would dare my wrath…!"

Ilsa made her eyes flash fire; her voice rang imperiously as any wizard in an epic Trid drama. The shaman grovelled at her feet. The other guards fell into line to escort them. Orion glanced sourly at Ilsa, who muttered that she'd found it rather degrading herself.

"Whatever works." Hotspur smiled, "Good improv, both of you."

"I don't do improv," Ilsa hissed, as they followed the orks into the necropolis, "Running in Calfree however, requires at least a touch of insanity."

-0-

"Loved and loyal subjects! We welcome you to the court-in-exile of Norton II, ruler of Calfree, Emperor of the United Canadian and American States and Protector of Aztlan. We extend to you our greetings and protection, and we welcome your homage. You may bow."

The Emperor's throne room was an abandoned chapel, cooled by the starry holes in the roof. Lights had been strung along the end of every dry-rotten pew. The handful of shamans and armed metas around looked more like loafers than royal guards, for an Emperor whose brocaded uniform had seen perhaps better years. The huge black dogs, Bummer and Lazarus, snoozed at Norton's feet. Flea-bitten as their master, but powerfully muscled, and–Ilsa saw immediately–both part-hellhound. What she had not seen anything like before was the golden,_ living_ halo around Norton's aura.

With Susan trapped and tortured in her own body, Ilsa was aware that Hotspur's patience with this beaming madman would be explosively short. She had insisted on leading off the parlay. Besides, her blue-blooded Prussian family had even supplied her with the etiquette. She stepped forward, bowed her head, and made a full curtsey with her cloak that would have done credit to a palace.

"It is an honour, my liege."

"So it is!" Norton twinkled with imperial pride, "Your manners please us, fair lady! We hereby name you Royal Ambassador, to our cousins of the German States. Go now! Let all your expenses of travel be charged to the Imperial treasury. Assure your countryfolk of our wish that bonds of peace should long endure between our two famous federations!

"We welcome you also, my friend!" Norton turned to Orion with bird-like suddenness, leaving Ilsa rather flummoxed, "You will find the sanctuary and peace here that the lamentable condition of fair San Francisco has denied to you and yours."

"Your majesty," Orion couldn't help answering, "While my people are at the mercy of murderers and corporate tyrants, I can have no peace."

"It is as I have said, your majesty!" The troll's voice boomed throughout the chapel. "There is no peace!"

The metas with mil-spec, Aztlan guns crowded into the chapel from the rear and sides. Cutting the Runners off from Norton, as Shavarus stepped heavily to his right hand–in his home-strung armour plates, with a troll=sized Remington shotgun on his back. The dogs rose beside their master, growling. Norton's attendants didn't move. It took every gram of Hotspur's willpower to stay still, and not carve the troll apart like a butchered ox. Shavarus glowered darkly at the decoy team from the pyramid, but turned back to Norton, for the moment.

"There can be no peace, while foreign Megacorps strangle your city, sire! There can be no peace while Saito's thugs drive out the metahuman, like a lamb to the slaughter. Your people look to you for justice. To their king, to lead them to war!"

The crowd roared. Orion clapped briefly and returned Harry's glare.

"Shavarus, my trusted councillor," Norton gazed up at the troll's dark face in honest anguish, "You know that the plight of San Francisco, and above all, the persecution of your people, grieves our heart and steals our sleep. The outrageous conditions that afflicted our eyes, when we last walked her streets, cannot and will not endure. We have published abroad five separate decrees banishing Saito and his marines from our city! Six decrees that the boards of all corporations should assemble to pay us homage, before speedily effecting such measures of relief as we command!"

Shavarus glared significantly. Several voices demanded, on cue; had any decree been obeyed?

"They must be! Must and shall!" Norton cried out, "Even in person, we have commanded the Japanese marines to desist from assailing our metahuman subjects, and received grievous insults to our royal person! However, they could not continue to strike a true-born monarch! In time, they stopped! As winter gives way to spring, hatred will pass away! As the sun must break through the night, the will of a rightful king, for his people's good, must come to pass! On that day your present forbearance, my good people, will mark even your humblest as this fair world's true nobility!"

_"Dad?"_ Anya whispered, _"Isn't that a load of…?"_

"I believe not, my girl." Orion stared at the Emperor of America, "He believes it. He has bled for it."

Hailey had instinctively set her PDA to record Norton's every word. All the Runners could imagine how this magnificently pitiful madman had drawn an army of the suffering and desperate. And how many of them would follow him into the guns of the Marines, if Shavarus could turn his mind towards war–though something evidently shielded him from mind control.

"I will not contradict my sovereign, your majesty," The troll's eyes did not bow with his head, "I fear that a wronged and pitiful woman must speak for me."

It wasn't Susan; it was Sarah. The troll girl lumbered fearfully to the front, bowing to Norton; Shavarus took her claw in his. Faltering and painfully, Sarah told what had been done to her by three marines when she'd been fifteen.

Norton sank in his chair; his fantasy world could not bear such things. He implored Sarah to stop–he could see that exposing her deepest pains before a crowd was like flaying her alive–but Shavarus told her she had to go on. He guided her outside when she'd finished in silent tears, with gentleness that was blasphemously unsettling. The assembled metas looked ready to kill the Runners by inches at a word; every weapon had a hand on it.

"And this is only a taste of the horror, your majesty!" Shavarus' voice boomed out, unstoppable, "One girl, among thousands raped and abused. Among the millions of metahumans throughout your realms–casually exploited and slaughtered, trapped in slums to die in terror and ignorance, for nothing more than their bodies and faces! How long must we endure, sire?"

"W-what could we do…?"

"Free your people from fear, your majesty! Hundreds stand ready for your word, to fight back against their oppressors. You need merely command; I have a plan already in motion. This evil will be swept from your lands, with a single blow."

"Only the evil? Will no innocent lives be lost?"

"No human who has stood by as we have suffered is innocent. And your majesty's subjects would rather live without fear for a week, than rot in a graveyard for all their lives."

Norton's hand rose to his fearfully contorted face; he stared at the floor. The crowd shouted for justice and blood. Ilsa thought of the winter king, killed to bring the summer; a blood sacrifice to baptise Shavarus' war. The cry for Norton's death, if he would not lead, even drowning out the barking of his dogs–but he would not speak.

"This was never a delegation," Ilsa hissed at Orion, "It was a coup."

_"Yeah, we know."_ Anya cut in, _"Good cause, bad troll."_

"Quite." Orion's gaze held back the closest ork thugs, "It seems the time for talk has passed–"

Then, with an Adept's speed, Hotspur flashed through the mob to Norton's side. The dogs snapped at him, the crowd roared for his blood, but his voice stilled them all. His eyes on Shavarus were vengeful fire.

"Your great and marvellous imperial highness. Shavarus. I must say that both your plans have some good points. If you stay in Colma, you survive until the Marines decide to kill you–they know you're here, don't doubt it. Or if you go to war…you will kill your enemies until it stops feeling right. You will see your friends and families die, and you will pray for death before they kill you all! I've charged out for glory, revenge, a better world, and all that drek. I've led my chummers into death, and it is the path of IDIOTS! There's no promised land, no shining path, no glorious Run! Fight to keep your families safe for tomorrow, together, wherever you have to go! But the only killing there'll be here tonight is _any fragger who wants to keep me from my girl!_ Fighter! Susan Lei! I lost her for two years, I've come from Seattle to find her, and I will kill or die to see her safe, right now!"

"Just for that! A human woman!" Shavarus bellowed in Harry's face, "Thousands of us, abducted and murdered, and _one human woman_–!"

"But what are thousands, but thousands of people, afflicted and loved?" Norton had sprung to his feet, revived, "What can bring hope to helpless affliction but a saviour, pure of heart? The quest of this lean and foolish knight to recover his lady! In a suffering world of iron, the dream of gold!" Now the metas laughed; but neither Norton or Harry cared, "Shavarus? Our friend Miss Lei went with you to San Francisco, on your mission to assure the good citizens of my concern for them. Produce the lady at once!"

"Did this mission involve assassinating the head of Pyramid Holdings?" Ilsa called. From Norton's expression, it obviously had not.

"Your majesty," Now Shavarus spoke with a sneer, "What better way to show your concern than to strike down an enemy of the people? However, this insipid farce has gone on long enough."

"Shavarus!" Norton drew himself up, "We thank you for your former services but are compelled to denounce your proposals and decree your banishment. Leave the land of Calfree, and do not return! Subjects, seize him!"

"Show's over boys." Muttered a grinning ork. The crowd, including Norton's attendants, levelled their guns at both the Runners and Norton.

"Did you think they had no minds, to perceive their true leader? You were never more than an old fool." Sharavus sneered down at Norton's impotent fury, as Harry drew his sword, "For the past weeks I have surrounded this place with my followers and dispersing your loyalists to outlying settlements! San Francisco's destruction will proceed without their sacrifice. I have many more pawns, powerful allies, and you could only conceive the strength of my hate if you had lived to see a megasprawl full of human dead!"

"Treason!" Norton shrilled. His hellhound-dogs snarled at Shavarus, their jaws smoking. The troll Mage loomed over them like a demon king, majestic in fanatical contempt.

"You were of use to me for a time, Norton, but revenge is my only use for humans, now. Except–" He smiled at Harry as he spoke, "–you are fond of your obedient dogs, are you not?"

Susan stepped from a door behind Shavarus. Walked to his side. She was wearing her armour, and a collar.

Norton roared. Green light and the scent of Haste flashed from his hands. The dogs, seeing their good friend abused, leapt on Shavarus like mastiffs on a bear. Harry would have been faster–but Susan was before the troll, kicking him back. Flinging a knife through Ilsa's Dispelling.

Orion knocked out three gunmen in an instant, while Hailey and Ilsa dived for cover. As Shavarus flung Lazarus hard into a pillar, and traced out a complex spell in a flash, Orion went for the troll like a bullet. The girls faced a horde of vengeful metas, as the church filled with smoke and gunfire.

RoboAnya plunked a Cavalier stun grenade from her pneumatic launcher, to buy them a minute. After flinging a smoke bomb, Hailey had no weapon but her drone and nowhere to run. She thought about what Sarah had gone through, and Susan; thought for a second about a bullet for herself. She turned to Ilsa, about to scream for a fireball. Then she saw that the Mage was aiming a fiery hand at Orion's back. As Sharavus swept the ork's Killing Fists aside with tree-trunk arms, he was still smiling.

-0-

"Susan. SUSAN!"

Harry had thought of this fight without fear. He punched his sword-hilt at Susan's beautiful eyes–she twisted aside, he'd known she would–then he snapped his katana back into its scabbard, wielding it as a cudgel. If his Fighter punched his life out he was ready to take it. If he couldn't die in her bed fifty years later after all, there was no better death than this to be dreamt of.

What had tortured him was not knowing what she felt–as her Killing Fist flew past his wire-taunt lips. Did she know what she was doing? He thought of her howling inside, as she went helplessly to kill her childhood friend. She might be pleading for him, without voice, to end her shame with death before she killed him…he had to save her from that. He had to knock her out, however much it hurt.

"You'd better forgive me for this!"

Susan darted from side to side, away from the rapid blows of his scabbard and hilt. Ki filled his limbs with dynamic power, he was quicker than her–but those dark, beloved eyes read his every move. As if she had watched him, then thought on him, for years. Harry felt tears fall, as he slashed around, and then her knife-hand lit up his shoulder with pain.

There was no pain or horror in her eyes. No sign that she was even fighting to break the troll's magic. There was sorrow–since that night, there had always been a trace–but there was pride and joy, as she fought him. He struck her blows aside and leapt back halfway down the nave, knocking out two orks before her flying kick followed him.

He thrust a foot between hers, going for a take down. Her front leg rose and flicked inward, his forearm barely blocked. Her ponytail wafted over his face, as she spun back and kicked–the scent of her sweat and effort almost dropped him to his knees. It felt just like their sparring in Redmond, before they were Runners. The struggles and dreams they had shared.

They spun around each other, like dancers, feeling each other's breath. Susan's spinning kick went over his head–smashing into an elf who had been moving to blindside him. Harry darted behind her, threw his arm around her neck. Her eyes went up to his, and they were still. As guns cracked and blows hammered above the sound of their hearts, their eyes were full of something like a joke. Something that couldn't be captured in words, that only the two of them would ever share.

_I love you._

_You came for me._

Then she drove her elbow into his side, spun away, and kicked him back towards the chapel's altar. He landed on his back, feeling ruptured. Susan dropped into a low stance, circling her arms–her eyes opaque–_what the frag?_ She had taught him, her father had taught her, anyone who messed about like that in a fight deserved to be shot. She wasn't even facing him squarely–as if her outstretched open hand was pointing past him–

However well-armed, Shavarus' followers were poor shots. He saw Susan stumble, as the stray bullet hit her back.

-0-

A bullet punched Hailey's shoulder round, as she sprinted from her pillar to the one where Ilsa was crouched. Then an acid bolt struck her chest–but scarcely burnt. Norton, alert to her distress, had cast Armour magic over her. With a wild wave of his other hand, the Emperor aptly revived Lazarus. The wounded hellhound leapt up and belched a fireball into Shavarus' mob. Hailey's drone put a bullet in a shaman's forehead, as she ran.

Hailey threw herself on Ilsa before the hypnotised Mage could burn down Orion. Remembering her Aikido practise, she twisted Ilsa about and drove her face into the ground. Ilsa broke her nose with an elbow strike and slammed her against the pillar. The older woman was stronger than her and Agency-trained. Hailey's windpipe would have been crushed if RoboAnya hadn't dropped her last stun grenade over their heads, knocking both women out.

_"Catfights. Who needs 'em?"_ She muttered.

A troll loomed over the pew where Anya had hidden her little drone body, raising a bat. Then he roared as Bummer leapt onto his massive shoulders, tearing at his spine. RoboAnya quickly scooted towards Hailey, medkit ready.

An elf street-mage threw manabolts against Lazarus' flame-breath until the dog sought cover, whining. The troll threw Bummer off and kicked him away. With more maniac cries and gestures, Norton summoned a four-winged nature spirit to protect Ilsa and Hailey. A still-burning ork shaman called an Abomination from the ground to counter it.

Shavarus' followers had reeled from the stun grenade, the fireball, and the Adepts flying everywhere–but not for much longer. Shots blew out lights, thunked into Norton's empty chair, and pattered around the Emperor. Trusting his destiny more than his healing and protection magic, Norton stood firm, shouting for his armies to rally round.

Shavarus would have finished him with a blow if not for Orion. The Adept darted around the troll, kicking his knee out. Falling, Shavarus stabbed his shotgun at Orion's face. The ork smacked the huge weapon across the room, killing a dwarf that it hit. Then sunk a fist into Shavarus stomach. The troll spat blood.

"Understand?" Orion whispered, "It is better to talk than fight. Release Susan, now."

"Better that race-traitors burn!" Shavarus roared. He rose up, one claw on his midriff glowing with Heal, and the other pouring fire onto Orion. His power broke through all the ork's Ki defences, scorching flesh to the bone.

Norton dropped to one knee under mana drain, as he threw all his Healing power at Orion's black, stinking body. The ork groaned and rose, flesh spreading over his burns–as Sharavus kicked him through the air and threw another Flamestrike. He turned to Norton–and then to the sword Hotspur was pulling from his side, in a splatter of blood.

"DIE!" He howled, stabbing at the troll's face, "DIE FOR WHAT YOU DID!"

Shavarus took the blows on his huge arms. His strength and the burning tower of his hate stood unassailable. Then he kicked at Hotspur's leg, too fast–Harry dropped, barely rolled away from the flamestrike, staggered up. Orion hauled himself to his feet, again, smoking and almost falling. He still charged again, beside Hotspur. Shavarus met them with a sneer; then charged around them to the centre of the chapel. He lifted Susan in one arm, wounded and unresisting, as he levelled his shotgun at the shadowrunners.

"I have wasted enough time here. You are surrounded by my followers, and my destiny awaits."

Roaring orders to his minions, Shavarus thundered out of the church; his shamans threw lightning walls after him. Hotspur would have gone to Susan through all of it, but a bullet punched through his thigh. He fell, came up with his sword levelled at at a horde of metas. Orion was beside him, almost leaning on him–they were both spent. Facing the guns that only had to fire to blow them out.

Then a grey, shrouded figure appeared before them, and spoke with a sepulchral voice.

_"The Marines are upon us. Their drones were seen by a sentry. Now they are in Holy Cross, killing everyone in their path. We will fight for as long as we can. Norton lives." _

-0-

With a sneer from the grave, where kings and commons meet, the ghost evaporated after relaying its message. Shavarus' followers hesitated. Some of them had families in Holy Cross cemetery; all of them knew the Marines would not stop until their sanctuary had been gutted.

"My poor people, my friends!" Norton rose from his knees, "This is the bitter fruit of senseless fraternal strife! Our enemies have come in among us, while we have been fighting each other! This should not be! Elf, dwarf and ork, human and troll, we swear by our honour that we will remain with you all. Even to die among our people, if it has come to this!"

Then Norton spread his arms, cried out from his heart; the chapel filled with the scent of skies and forests. Harry had felt shamans calling on their totem before, but this truly felt as if something very like a god was touching the earth.

Orion and Harry's wounds all closed. Their injured or dying enemies staggered up, as did Ilsa, freed from the mind control, and Hailey. Even the dead seemed to lie in peace.

Norton's Army lowered their guns and knelt. The few still inclined to fight–thugs Shavarus had brought in himself–were quickly subdued at gunpoint.

"Now…what can we do?" Norton gazed at Harry wildly, "That traitor Shavarus claimed we were surrounded by his minion."

"Dealt with that lot already, your majesty." A thickset ork woman with a hunting rifle marched into the chapel, "What we need to do is get the infants and elders hidden in the crypts, and the rest of us scattering in groups, with good leaders and guns. If we stay together, we'll survive the wilderness! The Marines will spoil, burn and leave, but we will return here!"

"I will assist the evacuation." Orion said, simply, "Anya…?"

_"I understand, Dad. I've got medkits left; I'll go with you."_

The ork huntress muttered that a guy who talked to drones would fit right in. Orion turned to Harry as the other metas started rushing out.

"I am sorry; there are innocent people here that I must protect. Pursue Shavarus. To rescue Susan and prevent whatever he intends."

"Indeed, good knight!" Norton beamed, as his people ushered him out, "Go to slay the monster, and win your lady's hand! I swear to reward your honour and courage with a title of nobility, wherever we next meet!"

Harry was still slumped against a pew, his face unreadable, while Ilsa sought some trace of her dignity and self-respect after such a terrible experience. It only made what Susan was still caught in more unimaginable.

"We have very little time." She addressed the ork huntress, whose name was Bertha, and who was quickly the only meta left in the chapel, "Do you have any idea what that _verdammt_ troll is planning?"

"He drove off to the west, with his picked troops. That's how we could knock out the ones he left. He never told us about his plan–he never trusted us–but Susan said he was talking to heavy hitters from Tir Tairngire. Everything with Norton's Army, or attacks in the city, is just a smokescreen. We don't know if it's some magic, or a bomb, but Susan told us that fragger isn't whistling Dixie about wiping the city out."

"Susan said, Susan told you…?" Harry raised his head.

"She said we had to find out what that fragger's plan was. She told her friends, that's us, to join up with Shavarus' army, keep our ears open…and she would pretend to still be mind controlled. She said she took three days to get herself back." Bertha shuddered with awe, "I guess that's a real shadowrunner."

"That is…the most idiot thing she could have done." Ilsa was as furious as Hailey was jubilant, "_Thinking_ you can break hypnotism–that you _could_ stop imitating a monkey, _if you wanted to_–is the way for the will to be destroyed! She couldn't even break the spell, or the troll would have known, she only resisted for over a week…_scheisse, scheisse, SCHEISSE!_ Of course, this is Susan–but that troll could have done anything to her. To give up her freedom, to submit, would be the worst thing for her, she would never–!"

"Susan would do anything, to save a city full of lives. Real shadowrunners can do anything, even save the world. "

Harry had kicked in the door behind the chapel's altar, where Susan had walked in from. The door her hand had pointed towards, as she'd sunk into that strange stance. In the tiny darkened sacristy, he raised his glowing PDA screen. _Embarcadero. Dawn. Pier Five_, had been cut into the stone wall with a knife. He dropped to his knees, laughing as he cried.

"The troll. What did he do to her?" Ilsa quickly asked Bertha.

"He beat her up. Made her beat some fragging traitor to death. I'm just about certain he never raped her; he was too busy with that poor Sarah chica. Racial purist, you know? He had his claws in Sarah since ages ago–she's gone with him. We had a job to make Susan see she couldn't bring Sarah onside, or she'd have told Shavarus everything. Think he's her fragging avenging hero, or some drek."

"Eww!" Hailey made a face. The ork huntress rushed out after Orion, and the rest of Norton's splintered and dissolving army.

"To the Embarcadero then," Ilsa finally called to Harry, "And if I get to Susan before you, I will seriously murder her."

"Yeah, I get it..." Harry still grinned. Bummer and Lazarus loped to his side, untired, tails wagging, "You guys want to come? Alright. Time to save the city. Time to save you, _Susan_…just like that impossible dream we had."


	8. The Black Freighter

"_We remember that the elves sang. But we forgot what they sang about…they were a merry folk, especially when they were twisting your arm behind your back to see how far it would go."_

–Terry Pratchett, _Lords and Ladies_

* * *

North of the Embarcadero harbour lived an elderly beachcomber. Very few sailors or drifters noted his walks beside the scummy shoreline of the bay, or the sound of a flute that drifted from his shack with the tide. Or the days and weeks when he would vanish like a ghost, since very few ever noted him at all.

Tarne's off-road Yamaha Growler roared through the predawn gloom, briefly smothering the faint music. The elf concealed his bike by the roadside, then ran to the shack, kneeling before the old man like an acolyte before an ancient master. After exchanging pass-phrases, he quickly recounted his work in the Mission District.

"So Voire survived, who knows you." A strong, cold voice, with the mid-Atlantic accent Tir elves proudly affected, "The Marines will find him, he will talk, and the authentic local identity for which you were recruited will be burnt."

Less than twenty of Tir Taingire's active spies in the Baysprawl had travelled by winding routes from the forests of Oregon. Their principal task had been the recruitment of Baysprawl natives such as Tarne, with no connection to Tir Taingire. Lesser races were co-opted by trickery, bribes or blackmail, but they preferred to draw in _goronagit_ elves with Tir's promise of their rightful destiny. Tarne leaned forward, his eyes no longer quiet.

"You recruited me for more than that, sir. I could go to the homeland, train, and then serve our people anywhere in the world. I know I have what it takes!"

The old man's rheumy eyes crinkled. The young asset's proper elvish pride had always touched him. Since the hardening hell of the deep forest training camps, however, no touch had ever moved his judgement. This boy might be a double agent, working his way up the ladder. Or simply a fool…or a dreamer.

The old man reached for his flute again and trilled a few bars through bloodless lips. Tarne recognised the tune, from Mission District street performances.

"In my years of exile from Tir's serene and blessed woods, I have learnt that this is a city built on desire, madness…and dreams. Perhaps Saito and his corporate masters would understand, if they stopped to hear the music. They comb every muckheap for terrorist plots, but a spark of fear and outrage will make their city rise in a single day."

"And I set that spark," Tarne eagerly asserted, "Our own assets, and the troll's minions throughout the city, have been armed to lead the charge. The precious 'face' of Saito's Marines will be covered in filth. The threat of his hatred towards our Land of Promise will be crippled! Even if the troll's grand plan transpires to be drug-fuelled vapouring."

"It is to be hoped not. Our comrades have come from the homeland, with the components that this _wineg's_ dark dream requires. Come, let us go to meet their ship."

As they stepped from the beachcomber's hut, the old man ran both hands over his face. His tea-stain skin drained to ivory, his cheekbones exquisitely lengthened and sank. Every wrinkle vanished, and waist-length raven hair blew back from pointed ears.

Tarne watched as if hypnotised, as Lieutenant Desorn Lightfall, Ghost of Tir Tairngire's Black Banner, walked down the grey beach with a panther's easy care. Desorn's own violet eyes were fixed across the bay, at the lights of the shadowed bridge.

"A city of dreams. A hive of nightmares. A pot of gold for the taking, to the Japanese–and a dagger Saito aims at Tir's heart. What is San Francisco to you, my elvish brother?"

"A festering concrete scar," Tarne hurriedly answered, "Where our race that should rule the world sprawls among drugs, petty rubbish and hatred. As an elf, the place disgusts me."

"We'll raze it to the ground one day and plant a great forest. The birth right of the elves…the peace of Tir upon the Earth. We shall spare no more of the lesser races than the world can sustain, and drive them out to labour in the fields."

Tarne knew he couldn't have hidden his shock from the Ghost's bright eyes. He strove to express his happy acceptance.

There were two light ocean kayaks, with which the elves would paddle out and guide the vessel from Tir into the Embarcadero. Tarne joked about the fate of any IJM patrol boat that attempted to stop a _ghost ship_!

"Small chance of that. We're quite aware of the routes and timings for all their patrols. Did you know that Colonel Itami of the Marines has an elvish mistress?"

Tarne whistled reverently. Both elves laughed; perfect teeth shone in the starlight.

As Desorn sent his kayak slicing through the waves, he glanced back again at San Francisco's towering skyline. Shining like metal; a poisoned dagger that his people would break. The prospect of greeting his old comrades, freshly come from the song-blessed woods of Tir, thrilled his heart. His adamant judgement permitted him to croon softly, as he slid across the bay, with a rich tenor more striking yet for its softness.

_The sun on the meadow is summery warm,_

_The stag in the forest runs free._

_But gather together to greet the storm,_

_Tomorrow belongs to me._

_The babe in the cradle is closing his eyes,_

_The blossom embraces the bee._

_Yet still says a whisper, arise, arise,_

_Tomorrow belongs to me._

_Oh, Land of the Promise, oh show us the sign,_

_Your children are waiting to see!_

_The morning will come when the world is thine,_

_Tomorrow belongs to thee._

-0-

Shavarus leapt from the hulking pick-up truck almost before it halted; his feet thumped to the Embarcadero's concrete. His followers piled off the other two flatbeds, spreading over the dockland and hacking down a few luckless harbour guards. The sounds of groaning cranes and swearing men came over the water to them with uncanny clearness, but skirmishes between Corper security and smugglers were so frequent that no busier pier raised an alarm.

Sarah moved eagerly from the truck's cab to her lover's side. Fighter stood placidly by his other side. Shavarus had already Healed her wound from Colma, but a thread of pain might have still been noted in her immobile face. The militants' decker (The elf who'd helped Shavarus and Fighter take the paydata from the pyramid) passed a small datastick to his boss. Then he swooped on a security booth, near the foot of the wide stretch of concrete and clutter that was pier 5, and prepared to Jack in.

"Take over all security cameras and lines of communication." Sharavus ordered him, "Sarah; remain here. You; come with me." _You_ meant Fighter. "The rest of you, set up an ambush among those containers. Allow no one onto the pier."

Shavarus' picked followers kicked the guards' bodies into the water, with curses, before setting down and rechecking their weapons. They were ex-gangers, banished MPA, veteran survivalists from Colma, and a couple of former shadowrunners. They knew their job and they believed in the troll, whose vision of metahuman power and victory had drawn them all.

"Lord Shavarus!" Sarah burst out, her huge shoulders sloping forward in submission, "If you fear that those Tir elves may betray us, please let me come with you!"

"I have planned against any treachery, therefore I am not afraid. I need you to keep watch; the security of this meeting is essential to my purpose. The Tir elves are a proud people, my dear. They have no respect for trolls." Shavarus's dark beard twitched with something very unlike a smile, "The human will serve to demonstrate how I am followed."

The troll girl glanced daggers at Susan's ponytail, as the Adept walked swiftly away beside Sarah's love and hero. No troll, Sarah was certain, had ever thought, spoken or led like Shavarus. His vision of justice and peace would have enthralled her, with as much force as the terror that humans had beaten and branded into her flesh–even if her saviour hadn't looked on, and loved, a pathetic troll like her.

Her strength was her shame. Even three humans should never have been able to rape a troll, but they'd got a gun against her head, and she had been too afraid to die. She'd been no fighter, she'd never wanted to fight. She'd wanted to be a dancer, or a Trid-star in LA like Kat Berg–the beautiful ork who spoke up bravely for metas everywhere. She'd been fifteen, and then they had made her nothing. She'd known that any human with a gun would've raped her again, unless she had run from the city.

She had loved _SeeräuberJenny's_ songs. She had cried with Susan, over the shame the human girl said they shouldn't feel. It didn't matter if she fought, her _shifu_ had insisted; she was precious and loved. But Shavarus had loved her first, as she'd never dreamt she would be, and had told her the truth. Unless she fought for metahumanity, she was nothing–and Susan had taught her to fight. Her hero would crush the vile little demons, as they had carelessly crushed so many innocents, and her own cowardice would be redeemed.

It was very believable to her that Susan had fallen for Shavarus as well. The exotically beautiful human barely ever left his side; she'd been cold and distant for weeks. Sarah wouldn't believe that her friend had truly stolen her love from her–but if it were so, then she would fight.

-0-

Behind Sarah, the elf decker had already dived into the Matrix. Hijacking security cams throughout the docks was candy from a baby. Until claws of blue light slammed down on his avatar's shoulders, like an ogre looming out of the fog.

_"Hello, skinny. Don't try to Jack out or give any sign. I'll cook your brain before you can think. Understand? Good boy. To start with…where's data from the pyramid? On that stick you passed to your loco loudmouth leader? What the frag is Shavarus planning?"_

"Do you think I'd just tell you? Without even a threat of torture?" The avatar sneered up into the shining jaws poised above his shaven head.

The digital sky became the colossal face of Anya Kotto. Through tusks like skyscrapers, her roar threw down the little avatar like a handkerchief.

_"NOT PLAYING, SKINNY! TELL ME EVERYTHING, OR DIE!"_

"Is…is that the best you can do?" The elf was still grinning. "Aren't you going to mess with my time perception? Show me my worst fears? Toss me through tortures that even a hideous meat body like yours couldn't survive? The Matrix can be so much _fun_, that way, but such idle pleasures are behind me. For Lord Shavarus' cause, for metahumanity itself…if I must trade the joys of life for a worthy death, then I must. I wouldn't expect a race-traitor to understand."

Anya's code shook with incomprehension–if she'd still had flesh, it would have been visceral disgust. She had decked for the Agency, they had tortured without mercy–but she was determined to do no such thing herself. She wasn't even happy to extinguish the life, forever, of such a vile creature as this.

The elf made to Jack out. If she fried him, his chummers would be alerted before her chummers were on the scene. Faster than thought, Anya deleted the code he required to Jack out from the Matrix or do anything within it at all. Disembodied and paralysed–Anya remembered the horror–the elf's grin stretched to a mad rictus.

"Kill me. Kill me!"

_"...I surely will. When my chummers get here."_

Anya rapidly cased the whole Embarcadero, through the windows onto cyberspace afforded by the security cams. Shavarus and Fighter were half-way down pier 5. She sent a camera loop to the troll's PDA so he wouldn't miss his decker. There was nothing useful in its memory; another burner. There were harbour recovery drones stored on the pier, but none with weapons, or she would have jacked them and thrown them at Shavarus at once.

Especially as she homed in on a small party of elves, in civilian clothes, stepping off a trim, innocuous yacht at the end of the pier. Not even the Agency had dared to cross Tir's legendary special forces, but she recognised the handshakes and countersigns of the Ghost Circle. Whatever had convinced Shavarus that Susan was under his control, those operatives would never let her walk off the pier alive. Anya opened a comm channel to Harry.

_"Hoi, loverboy! Shavarus and Susan are meeting with Tarne and five Tir Ghosts right now. You did not mishear! I've shut the troll's decker down, but you've got ten minutes, tops, before his goons work out that jacking cameras doesn't take that long. Get your hoops here, now!"_

-0-

Slightly less than a mile from the Embarcadero, the Runners' stolen car had run dry. Ilsa tutted that it was quite predictable really.

The dogs, Bummer and Lazarus, piled out. They had borne as quietly with the frantic car ride as with many other happenstances of their straying, vagabond lives. Like Susan, Hailey thought they were smarter than some people, even if they'd half smothered her in sulphurous black hair on the back seat. Her legs trembled, as she got out; she had been moving and facing death for over sixteen hours that felt like a war-torn lifetime. Or maybe the unbelievable thought of facing _Tir Ghosts_ was about to drop her down in the dirt.

"We can hardly run the rest of the way." Ilsa glanced down the empty road, then at her PDA, "We need to–"

"–run the rest of the way." Harry slammed the car door. His eyes held no doubts, "That's all we can do, so we have to do it, now. We've run, we've fought, but if we're ever going to see Susan again in our lives, we need to make a miracle, now! Ilsa, you can Haste yourself. Hailey, your hoverdrone can keep pace. Anya, give us siterep as we go! Don't think I can't see the danger–but I see _her_, Susan, risking her life, and if two hundred fragging Ghosts were on that pier, I would still go!"

They ran. Hotspur's legs sparked with Ki, tirelessly champing up the ground. His sword level at his waist like a falcon's tail, he ran like a hero. The dogs galloped at his side; Bummer raised a low, savage howl and they ran still faster.

Grimly, Ilsa ran, her Haste spell letting her barely keep pace. Hailey was in excellent trim, for a decker. For her city's sake, she just ran her heart out.

-0-

Nine minutes and thirty seconds later, Sarah wondered again if it would be safe to nudge the elf decker. Then she saw blood burst from his pointed ears–she turned to him, then _behind her_, racing feet! A skinny human devil with ravenous eyes and a Japanese sword, rising to kill the trog slot. To kill Lord Shavarus. To kill every hope she'd ever clawed back from the evil men did…

"NO!"

Flinging a massive side kick at the human, she breathed out with her scream as Susan had taught her. Her rear leg swung round in another kick like a wrecking ball. Her comrades' gunfire opened up from the crates behind her. The human leapt back, her fist followed. She let nothing hold back her rage and hate–power she'd never felt fired through her limbs.

Then a spirit burst up from the water, scaly and stinking, on her comrades' flank. They answered its water jets with bullets–but a drone was humming aloft on their other flank, punching its shots through street-armour. _Now_, magic was crackling over the huge black dogs that galloped out, fire bursting from their mouths. Sarah heard her comrades' death-cries. Desperately, she fought and swung on.

Lazarus' eyes glowed red. A troll hefting a grenade went suddenly stiff as a board. The half-hellhound strays would have run through hell for their good friend. A hunting rifle cracked, blood flew from a black flank, but Ilsa's healing magic flashed out. More bullets sunk in their shoulders–Shavarus' troops weren't going to run–but the pain only maddened them over again.

Bummer's muscles surged beneath his hide, as he bowled down an ork and crushed his throat. A dwarf shaman had called up a burning salamander-spirit; Lazarus snapped back at the monster without pause. Aiming charms flashed over the gunmen from an elf street Mage's hands, until Ilsa burnt her down, and ducked into the cover of the security station. She firebolted the orks that Bummer and Lazarus flushed from shelter.

Hotspur dodged back again from Sarah's fist. Her blows were wild but empowered by rage. And the red light of killing Ki, around her fists. Sixteen was late for Awakening, but trauma could bury inner strength. Harry didn't know the troll girl's story, or where the rage in her eyes had been born. He knew he had to kill this troll, before Susan's brainwashed act broke down. Before all he had feared fell on Susan after all, while he was only one bridge away from his love! He had to kill the sad-eyed, furious troll with her long dark hair, but he somehow could not.

Sarah whipped round, as Ilsa threw a Flamestrike at her back. The troll girl finally crashed down, silent and smoking.

Hotspur dashed over her, at the foes between him and Susan. His blade carved a huge ork's torso from shoulder to waist, the best way. At his side, Lazarus snarled under another bullet, then spat fire at the shooter's face.

It was over in minutes. A stand-up, routine fight, except for one thing. As Hailey jogged up, rested on her thighs, then rose and made towards Ilsa–an ork rested a hunting rifle and fired a soft-nosed bullet into her chest.

Hotspur was on the ork before he could work the bolt or aim the handgun he drew; one thrust ended his life. Then Harry sprinted back to where Hailey had collapsed. Ilsa was already applying a medkit. Air from her lungs and blood from her arteries were already pouring out.

She finally coughed blood, as the nanites did their work. Harry squeezed her hand hard. Her brown eyes rested gently on his tortured face.

"I'm sorry! _I'm sorry_. I should have waited, I should have watched…frag, frag, frag…"

"It's okay, Harry. Uh…you're okay. You had to run and save your girl…hrk!…not me…but doesn't this, like, deserve a little kiss?"

"She needs a DocWagon," Ilsa snapped, "Medkits and Healing can only do so much." Harry swiftly clipped his own gold contract transmitter to the young decker's wrist, "We need to go now, Hotspur. They must have heard all that. Right now or never, wasn't it?"

Hailey didn't let go of Harry's hand. There was blood on her teeth–like Susan's lips, that night in Hong Kong. Her eyes pleaded that she could face anything with a smile, so long as her chummers didn't leave her alone and dying.

Harry thought of Feng; he had no idea if she was alive, but she was probably dead. He thought of Izanami and Alison Douglas. All the women he had left behind. And Susan Lei, only and always, the woman he still had to save…could shadowrunners save anyone at all? He knew, like he never had before, that he was doing a very drekky thing to the girl at his feet…but he would do it. He would go to save the girl he loved, at last, and never let go of her. Then he would never leave a woman behind again.

_"Yeah, you need to haul hoop, chummers!"_ Anya trilled in their earpieces, _"A speedboat of Renraku Samurai will be onsite, five minutes or less, from their anti-smuggling patrol round Pigeon Point. The Marines will be here in twenty."_

"What? Haven't we seen enough of those fraggers, why the frag–?"

_"I called it in! Spun a story about a uranium suitcase. These are Tir Ghosts, Hotspur! You can't beat five of them, no way, Susan can't escape them alone, nohow. Our only chance is to get her out and get the frag out, with the distraction I have just kindly arranged for you!"_

"Where have you been all my life?" Ilsa muttered, "A chummer with a plan."

"I get it. We need to go…" Harry finally pulled away, "You're a brave Runner, Hailey. See you on the other side."

Then Harry darted up, and away, towards the girl he had to save. Medkit-drugged and fading as she was, Hailey saw how his eyes were fixed straight ahead. His breath quickening, like a wolf hearing the howl and catching the scent of its mate. A desperate but somehow peaceful smile spreading, beneath hungry eyes, as if for the first time in two years or more, he was where he belonged.

Weary but unyielding, Ilsa followed him. Anya quickly briefed them further on the enemies she could see. Bummer lingered beside Hailey to lick her face, but Harry called him, and the dog trotted along with Lazarus. They needed everyone who could move to stand a chance, and they were almost certain that DocWagon would find Hailey before the Marines did.

Hailey thought so too, but it was less of a comfort. The dawn was warm on her cold face, the crying seabirds sounded like vultures. Seagulls did wolf down any kind of food, just like shadowruns.

She'd met an Emperor, _almost_ stolen from a Megacorp, fallen in love, again, and now…the world was _totally_ more brilliant and brutal than she had imagined. She didn't want to leave it yet. She wanted to be with a man who would look at her like Harry had looked to Susan…because in fifty years or next month, or right on this spot, she did not ever want to die alone.

-0-

**About fifteen minutes earlier**

For much the same reasons as Anya, Susan took small comfort from her front row seat at Shavarus' meeting with the Tir. If she'd been set to watch the foot of the pier, she could have killed a guard or slipped away to accomplish some eavesdropping. Impossibility of solid plans had not been the worst part of feigning to be the brainwashed puppet of a power-drunk trog, for two weeks, three days, four hours. Ilsa would have especially hated it, but Susan had always been one for improvising. It was not knowing what the frag would be done to her–only knowing that she could never fight back–that she feared had already broken her mind.

The three days she'd taken to break the trog's control, she might as well have spent needling herself in the stomach. Screaming at the buried core of her mind that she was being stolen, violated, abased in shame. Shame she could have forgotten so easy, if she had stopped fighting for a moment…but she had kept stabbing, never stopped. She had come out lying spent on a tomb's floor, tears trickling over her face to the stone. She was an Adept. She couldn't be controlled, she had sworn never to submit. She wanted to burn the dust from the trog's sandals off her lips.

Shavarus had recast the mind control spell, of course, but she'd been ready for it. She had burned to kill him, of course, as she'd killed trolls before–but it never helped. She would still have been violated and beaten. A false hero from her first shadowrun, who couldn't even save herself.

But if that was what she was, couldn't she use it to truly defeat the trog? Her weakness, his monstrous pride–redeem the one and smash the other? And save San Francisco. She'd heard him talking with the elf, Tarne, about his plans with Tir–he'd boasted about the depth of his hate, as he'd beaten her bloody.

At his feet, with the horror she'd always feared, always fought, choking as much of her mind as his fist had not knocked out…she had not fought back. It had been hard, it had been wrong. But she was a shadowrunner. She'd killed three innocent orks; killed more people than she could count, and she couldn't remember why. If she could save Ilsa, Dr Chambers, Hailey, Kali and everyone else…if shadowrunners could save people, as the man she loved had said (Frag, she needed him, frag…!) then…how could she flinch from anything she suffered at all?

So, she had taken the beatings. Naked, she had borne the trog's gaze unmoving, as her soul had writhed. She had obeyed the monster. She had deceived her sister-friend Sarah and felt the troll girl's hostility–that had been the hardest bit, apart from nearly everything else. But in secret, she had enlisted her friends in Colma as spies within Shavarus' traitors. Every time the trog had recast his magic, she had broken it. Alone, when she didn't know how she would ever get through, she had kept hope. Beaten, shamed, unresisting–she had never felt stronger. As if a fire blazed and spread within her unbroken body.

She could endure anything. She had to endure everything. Did not all metahumans bleed…?

Susan knew that when was it finally time to kill the trog, she might find he had controlled her all along, and she was helpless. She knew that the weeks of still suppression and silent abuse might have broken something inside her forever, already. Ilsa had told her, two lifetimes ago, about the assault victim's slippery slope–from shame to false guilt, to ruined self-worth and self-abuse. She had to move on; she had to save the city, but she had to get out. Seeing Harry in Colma, without running to him and clinging to his feet, had almost broken her. She couldn't last much longer…but she couldn't get out, wouldn't move on, without him. This wasn't the way she had planned it, but she would never leave behind her years of pain unless he finally saved her. Then he could move on too, from their blighted past...they could go through their lives together, unless she died today.

-0-

Above Susan, Shavarus' horned head was erect and fixed upon his destiny, as he stalked heavily towards the elves at the end of the pier. There was Tarne (Susan had resolved to beat him _half_ to death, for Hailey's sake), failing to hide his nerves. And there were the five elves with noiseless footsteps, eyes to penetrate walls, and an assurance of mastery in their thin lips.

A white-haired elf in green robes, with a sense of age and intensity to his smooth face. A slim, stunning woman with two silenced handguns holstered beside her breasts, a Steyr rifle on her back, and an unsettling grin. A more nondescript woman at the elder's side, if any elf could be nondescript. And a bearded, more thickset elf, who sent four tiny electric-blue finches flashing out from bags at his waist. As the tall, dark Adept–Susan saw it in his steps–advanced and clasped the troll by the hand, in the red light of dawn.

"The renowned Shavarus, I believe? Well met. I am Desorn Lightfall. You know your contact, Tarne. This is Aeirion the Defender, our field commander." The elder inclined his head. "You'll forgive me for not introducing my other colleagues."

"Don't worry; I will forgive it." Shavarus growled, "Those birds–one of the Awakened species you breed and train for lookouts? Unnecessary. My followers have secured this area."

"Ah? Well, please do indulge our little foibles in this matter." Desorn's calm elvish smile did not shift a micron, even as he turned to Susan, "Speaking of foibles…?"

"A human dog that I have tamed through spellwork. She was an Adept." Shavarus raised his cliff-like chin even further above the elf's head. "While the ancient magic of Tir is justly renowned, you can see that my own power is nothing to sneer at."

Six cold, iridescent gazes settled on Susan. The control spell she'd resisted still hung on her aura. Shavarus' towering pride in his magic had scorned to minutely check the astral tendrils snaking around her brain, but _they would, they would, all for nothing_…with all her willpower, Susan did not move, or look away, or accelerate her breaths, under the eyes of the Tir Ghosts.

"An Adept, eh?" Aeirion murmured, "I might take a look to make sure…"

Sharavus barked a command at Susan. She thought of Harry's face at Colma, his touch, and it was somehow the hardest thing she had done in two weeks, but it had to be over soon…

She lowered herself slowly to her hands and knees, in front of Desorn. She kissed his sandaled feet, then Aeirion's shoes, then the shoes of the bearded animal trainer. Who, with a leisurely grin, squatted down and ran his hand down Susan's backside.

Desorn and Aeirion scornfully averted their eyes. So did Tarne and the plain elf. Sharavus was staring fiercely at Aeirion; the gunslinger was giggling musically at the display. Nobody saw Susan shut her eyes. They would have heard the choking in her throat–but she fought down the nightmare that had tortured her for years, and smothered it.

"Very well; you have tamed an Adept." Aeirion snapped, "Most impressive. Might we now proceed to more significant business? You proved your _bona fides_ when our associates funded your successful shadowrun on Pyramid Holdings. You have been extremely close, however, about the major operation which apparently requires such particular materials."

"You have brought the fetishes? From Tir itself?"

"Indeed we have." The old Mage's eyes narrowed dangerously at such _goronit_ brusqueness, but Shavarus was thundering to his victory.

"Excellent. They will summon our new, true dawn of vengeance. With three first-rank magic-users to wield them, including myself...and the data from Aztechnology. If had been less 'close' with my plans, you might have raided the pyramid and brought this vile city down yourselves!"

"The Aztechnology data?" Desorn murmured, "We assumed you intended to use it for blackmail. _Il-ha?_"

Shavarus loomed above all the elves, like a black storm cloud. The lightning of his vision flashed in his eyes.

"I am no criminal. I am more than a shadowrunner, more than a terrorist. I am the saviour of this world, and I will remake it with my own hands! All peoples will live with strength and pride, in their own place. Oakland will be for the orks and Halferville for the dwarfs. The elves–will manage as well as they ever have, I do not doubt!"

Desorn answered Shavarus' grin at this touch of humour. Then the troll kicked the kneeling Susan about a foot to one side.

"There will be no place for humanity. The dogs of the Megacorps, the scum of the Earth! Did you know that this land all used to be desert? For centuries, every drop of water has been pumped across miles of pipeline, to prolong man's unnatural existence on this peninsular. The Aztechnolgy files expose every detail and defence of the great Hetch Hetchy waterway. The carotid artery of San Francisco, my brothers, and we will eviscerate it tonight. Men will look for aid in vain from the selfish, fleeing Megacorps, or the drekheap they call a national government in Sacramento. They will get out of this city or they will die like dogs, of hunger, thirst and disease. We shall make a desert, and we shall call it peace."

-0-

Through the pain, Susan listened. Shavarus had given the details of his plan, and Aeirion had shut down Desorn's objections, before the sound of gunfire poured down the pier. Susan thought she might run, as the monsters turned. But the elf woman had a handgun at her head before she could rise.

"Just in case she's not _quite_ controlled, you know? Or she might come in handy."

Susan felt the elf's grinning eyes, like a rabbit in a weasel's jaws; they dared her to try. She knew the Ghosts meant to kill her here, and not leave any loose end to chance.

"Nothing but some second-rate shadowrunners!" Shavarus forcefully assured his elvish allies, "That is the noise of my followers gunning them down."

"My birds are saying…" The bearded elf strained for the ultrasonic chirps that training and magic had attuned him to, "…that four hostiles are heading up the pier. Your followers are presumably dead. So it goes, for the weak."

"Might we possibly trouble you, my dear Shavarus," Desorn's voice dripped with poisonous courtesy, "For descriptions of these second-rate shadowrunners? Lankin, keep tabs on their position. _Medaron co versakhan_, my comrades."

Susan's heart hammered. The elves stood their ground, but as lightly and alert as cats.

Lankin, the animal trainer, finally stabbed his finger at two large crates. The Runners were on the other side. Then he sniffed the air, laughed out loud, and wove an obscure little cantrip as he whistled.

Bummer and Lazarus trotted out to the Ghosts with tails wagging. They stared at Susan, smelt their friend's distress–but Lankin stepped in front of her and the whistling notes filled with safety and charm rang out again. The dogs stood and stared, dizzied and torn, as the elf woman reached for her second pistol.

"Don't you dare shoot them, Greenwood." Lankin hissed, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship." The elf woman, Lowri Greenwood, gave another musical laugh.

"Facing the Ghosts of Tir, with Awakened beasts! How unfortunate. How foolish…"

Then her head whipped round, at a creaking noise. The block of an automated crane beside the water, with an invisible digital ork in control, was swinging ponderously for her.

The elf's Ruger was still at Susan's head. She would fire as she dodged. It wasn't a chance, but Susan knew it was all she would get. Her hand, hung limp at her side, flicked up.

She was fast, the elf was faster. The silenced, still ear-cracking bullet would have blown her out, if Ilsa hadn't fired her body with Haste that moment. Fighter dodged and chopped the spitting gun aside, fast as a hare. Then she smashed Greenwood's nose with a backswing chop and twisted a straight kick into Lankin that flung him down. An Acid Bolt fizzled in his palm, as nothing but Greenwood's Adept speed and rage let her duck the crane.

The dogs heard the fury and pain in Fighter's scream. They fell on Lankin and mauled the stunned Ghost to death on the concrete.

At last, Fighter let power fill her limbs again. She was deafened and aching, but she grinned up into Shavarus' rage. Filled with the victory that would redeem her when she had killed him.

With a horrific roar, Shavarus threw a blast of flame–that burst in his hands, as Ilsa strode forward with a counterspell. The plain female Ghost beside Aeirion flung ball lightning. It threw the dogs back whining, and scorched Fighter's limbs as she leapt ahead. Her punch still bit into Shavarus' midriff. She dodged huge claws, darted back in and sent her foot slamming up into his jaw, screaming out rage with every blow.

Hotspur answered her as he sprinted out, flinging a stun grenade. Greenwood shot it out in mid-air from the floor. A knot of drones burst from a locker and crawled at the elves, multitools waving. They were blasted within a second, but it gave Lazarus the chance to end Ilsa's rapid counterspell duel with the female Mage. The dog's eyes flashed, she was paralysed. Then Ilsa threw a fireball, and Bummer spat fire with her.

Through the smoke, Ilsa saw that Greenwood was still reeling, the Ghost's female Mage was stunned. But magic flashing from Aeirion the Defender had wiped out every burn or wound on all the elves. Then darkness rushed from Aeirion's hands; the dogs fled the scene in howling terror. The Ghosts' leader began a third spell, like nothing Ilsa had seen or imagined.

Tarne drew his Browning, fired on Hotspur as he charged. But Harry was flying in, urged on by more than strength or magic–as Susan swung her fists at the troll, he had never charged faster. This was the fight he had been born for. She was where he belonged. He rolled under the bullet, smashed his swordhilt up into Tarne's chin. The elf crashed out cold.

Then Desorn strode forward; his arm flicked out. Hotspur's sword flew away, clattering to the edge of the pier. He'd been disarmed by a master Triad Adept before–he had already charged his fists with Ki. Fast and jointless as a snake, the Ghost shifted back and forth, ahead of his punches. Then Desorn darted in, and his blows struck like a storm. Without even a closed fist, his sheer speed would have shattered planks. It threw Hotspur down in a bloody heap.

"HARRY!"

As Shavarus fell back from Fighter, her head whipped around, and she sprang at Desorn. The Ghost Adept twisted about like a dancer; she dodged aside from his front leg straight into his turning back leg, and thumped down.

"Only human." The elf murmured, "It must be so aggravating for you."

"We don't let it get us down, drekhead." Hotspur spat, rising. Ilsa threw a Flamestrike at Desorn–that went straight through the Ghost, without effect.

Aeirion had completed his spell. A crystal in the elf Mage's right hand threw a sickly glow over his smile.

As Fighter went for Desorn again she could shift his knife-hand barely aside, straining her arms to the utmost. Had he learnt _Wing Chung _and Drunken Fist in Chinatown, on top of his crazy, formless elven style? He would strike high, no–! She blocked his first low thrust, not the second or third. She could barely read him, she couldn't match his speed, but she could not fall. Her low kick went through his knee like mist; he'd let her hit home to show he was untouchable, she was sure. The Ghost's knife hand hurt like any blow she'd taken–and Shavarus was looming up behind.

Her foot axed up into the troll's thigh, but the elf's Killing Fist stabbed at her chest. She struck out and struck again, but nothing hurt the Ghost, and Heal was flashing from Shavarus' claw. Nothing stopped the trog. She ducked the blow of a huge shotgun stock, dropped to the floor and rolled back, shaking.

As Hotspur staggered up, Lowri Greenwood was up as well. Ilsa's Flamestrike passed harmlessly through the Ghost gunslinger. She aimed three shots and fired in one motion. As every security cam on the pier sparked and exploded.

Greenwood put bullets through Ilsa's shoulder and Hotspur's body; undistracted, she would have headshot them both. Fighter barely darted aside, into a blow from Shavarus, as the third bullet cracked concrete. Anya, who'd overloaded the cameras, screamed at her chummers from the silent Matrix; _RUN!_

Harry hauled himself up again, with a bullet in his gut. His Ki damped the pain, but he knew he would fall in seconds. Behind him, the troll and the elf were boxing Susan in. Too slowly, he pulled out the old Fichetti from his side, that couldn't harm the Ghosts at all, and thrust it out. His eyes slowly, frantically groped about the elf woman's grinning face. She was savouring his helplessness as he fell.

As the grenade dropped from his left hand, and then he kicked. Lowri lashed out at the Renraku flash-bang but it blew, blinding her and Aeirion for seconds.

Ilsa's summoned Earth Spirit thundered at Desorn and Shavarus, swinging its granite fists and throwing out protective magic. A flame wall sprang up behind Susan, as she dashed to Harry's side–Ilsa had to Heal her own gunshot or she would have bled out where she'd collapsed. Then she ran, even throwing her cloak aside, though she managed to snatch Hotspur's sword from the ground as she went.

She could hear the shouts and pounding feet of Anya's summoned Renraku harbour patrol. Rather than charge through an obscuring barrier at a gathering threat, the Tir Ghosts would slip away–at least, that was their only chance.

Only Sharavus charged through the flames. As Susan lifted Harry up, his fist threw them both down. Still gripping his Fichetti, Harry emptied it from the floor at the monster's face. Little bullets; Shavarus still staggered back.

Susan hauled Harry up again, and they ran with all the will to live in their hearts. As Shavarus fired his shotgun, Ilsa threw back a final firebolt. Stray pellets bit through their armour, but they couldn't fall again. There was SMG fire behind them, the Renraku team, then Sharavus' roar of fury. They heard the troll running, diving into the water. With elephantine power, swimming for the city.

Then they were tumbling into a boat, and Ilsa was shouting for someone to drive it. Collapsed in the bows, Harry gave her the swiftest Speedboats 101 in Calfree history. Susan pulled a medkit from his bag, for him. Then she only clung to his head, as he rested on her knees. She was coughing blood herself. They were finally speeding off across the bay. Three shadowrunners, bloodied and exhausted.

"It was certainly fortunate," Ilsa called, "That one of us knew how to start this boat!"

"After running from the Triads…from Hong Kong to Japan…" Harry gasped, "I should fragging know my way around a boat…"

"My man. Where would I be without you?" Heavy joy forced down Susan's head, "We'll have so much to talk about. I should know about boats, after a sea dragon floated Ilsa and me across half the Pacific…"

"That…sounds novahot." Harry managed, "But when you let me think you were brainwashed by that troll, what were you thinking? I was so scared for you…I love you…I nearly went insane."

"...sorry. It was tough for me as well, you know."

_Sorry_ sounded a lot like _idiot_, and Harry felt it. Susan looked away, at the patrol boat churning towards their vessel, and didn't even slap him. They were together, at last, but of course he'd fragged it up.

Ilsa rubbed her glasses, sighed, and took note that happy endings did not exist. Though their more pressing issue was whether to flee the patrol boat's machine guns in their tiny stolen speedboat, or finally stop running.


	9. A Million Voices

_A tremendous roar arose…all the fingers convulsively clutching at every weapon or semblance of a weapon that was thrown up from the depths below…who gave them out, whence they last came…no eye in the throng could have told…_

_…the living sea rose, wave on wave, depth on depth, and overflowed the city…yet…lovers, with such a world around them and before them, loved and hoped._

–A Tale of Two Cities, _Charles Dickens_

* * *

Susan had taught Sarah about the 48 Ki release points, and the troll girl had listened wide-eyed to stories of breaking Flamestrikes on a Mystic Shield. Wielding such power herself had been a thing undreamt, until the squishy wizard threw flame in Sarah's face. Her Ki shield held back enough; her big, ugly body was burnt, not fried. If she was a coward and a failure, at least she survived.

She lay half-unconscious, feigning death and wishing she was dead, as the DocWagon ambulance carted off the little human slot with a contract. Even if the Corper pigs had seen a profit in treating her, she'd have crushed them first. No one was for her now except Lord Shavarus, as the marines stepped over her comrades' bodies.

Sarah heard their boots and voices spreading over the harbour around her. An officer arranged with the paramedics that an interrogation team would head to the hospital, for the shadowrunner. Their idle talk, in the language their TriD shows and tanks had spread from Calfree to Manila, choked her with terror and shame at every touch.

One marine was squatting down, to check out the dead trog's body. Two more behind him. The smell of his sweat made her fight to not be sick. One of them joked about the size of her rear, one laughed. Then Sarah's horns loomed three feet above his head, before she slapped it almost off his neck.

She killed the other marines with two blows. A rifle spat lead over her shoulder, but she was untouched. It was a relief–killing her abusers simply felt like a glad, intense release, for a moment. Maybe it'd take a dozen or a hundred dead demons for the pain they'd put on her to go? Susan would've known, but she'd never said. It was strange that she longed for her friend, right now–but if she could even be worthy of kneeling at Lord Shavarus' feet again, she had to fight on for him. Give her life for his dream. She could not die here.

There were shouts behind her, gunfire. Then an explosion at the end of the pier; a chance. Sarah thundered towards the water and dived in. They would both show the little demons what a troll's strength meant.

-0-

"So, now that I've expended much of my rather strained goodwill with Renraku and Mitsuhama, to keep you from a blacksite prison or the bottom of the Bay…can you please tell me you've found my fragging paydata?"

"We know where it is." Ilsa retorted across Kali's desk. The music mogul's expression would have cut through a steel door.

Anya, of course, had contacted Kali even before the Runners had reached the Embarcadero. Kali had started making calls at once, but the Renraku harbour patrol had been shocked by a call from their regional director only moments before they would have machine-gunned the stolen speedboat. Ilsa was overwhelmed with thankfulness for the digital ork who had saved all their lives again. Rather more so than for their resourceful Ms Johnson and her corporate employers, whose best hope of recovering their precious paydata was to keep their pawns on the board, for now.

Although finally kicking out the Azzies was no longer the Japancorps most pressing concern. The checkpoint before the city had been manned by Mitsuhama security rather than marines, with orders from on high to wave the Runners' taxi through. They'd heard shouting, defiant singing and the wet noise of incessant blows from behind the security station; the drive back to Club Eclipse through an urban warzone had earned their driver several times his fee in danger money.

There had been screaming crowds on the streets, with far more guns than banners. Petrol bombs sailing from any window, ambushes on any corner, and precincts under siege. Voire, the Tir elves and Shavarus had stirred up the rising of their dreams. MPA fighters, Tir-armed militants, desperate metahuman civilians and even human San Franciscans sickened by the Marines' brutality. Saito's forces had been hunting terrorists and showing their strength through Oakland and the Mission District all night–but at first some had fought them and then the city itself seemed to have risen.

Of course the Marines had still fought back for peace and order–backed by security forces from Fuchi, Shiawase, Mitsuhama and Renraku. There had been more bodies on the streets than rioters since noon, beneath a pall of tear gas, though Ilsa still heard distant gunfire from Kali's office window. The tanks and artillery deployed in Oakland had thundered for almost an hour after the streets were clear, until Saito's fury had been sated at last, for a moment.

The sudden rising had lacked plans, objectives and anything but hope; its failure was no surprise. Certainly not to the agents who had whispered, fomented and armed, simply to weaken Colonel Saito's standing with his masters. Or to the toweringly mad troll who had contrived so much, to merely distract from his master plan that Ilsa was ready to fall at Susan's feet for uncovering.

Exhausted from over sixteen hours of Run, Ilsa had actually fallen asleep in the taxi. Even Susan and Harry had been too exhausted to plunge into the rising themselves, as well as too angry to say a word to each other. But now they had promises to be kept, and miles to go before they slept.

"Hailey. Is she safe?"

"Of course. I had her transferred to corporate custody with the pretext that Renraku happen to lease that part of the Embarcadero. She's not a meta, and she was peripheral to the Mission District ambush; they'll cut her loose. Especially as I mean to enlist her as my personal decker. When you've got a talent like that on the hook for her life–make the most of it, I say."

"That should protect her and keep her out of dangerous shadowruns. Maternal instinct?"

Kali scowled, defensively.

"The Marines do usually bow before the Corps that give them their transports, their guns and their orders. Their investigators at the DocWagon facility did mention that they would find, break, and execute on live TriD, every terrorist shadowrunner involved in the Mission ambush. Your corporate protection, which slaps a substantial penalty fee on your final payment, will disappear the instant this job is finally over. I expect you'll manage that little problem as efficiently as everything else you've failed to deal with so far."

"Your own future plans should account for this city's fate being sealed by tomorrow morning, unless we can thwart Shavarus and the Tir. If the San Francisco peninsula's supply of fresh water and hydroelectricity is cut off in this condition of chaos, we will see primal anarchy in the street. The Megacorps and the Marines will evacuate, but ordinary people will kill each other for food and potable water; the death toll will be incalculable."

"I assume you have proof of this…?"

Ilsa's green eyes showed a woman who had fought across the abyss, whose chummer had suffered through hell, and was not prepared to be doubted. Kali sighed and told her to go on.

-0-

_The plain female Ghost, Sergeant Alys Morgan, quickly confirmed the plans of Hetch Hetchy on Shavarus' datastick. While the troll examined one of the Tir fetishes, running huge fingers over harpies' feathers and medallions carved from coral. Susan lay on the concrete of the Embarcadero, at Shavarus' feet, and waited to hear what she had endured so much for._

_"Exquisitely refined." Even the troll's murmur was like thunder._

_"Of course. Our R & D labs at Hayden Slough work with our finest minds."_

_he Ghosts' commander, Aeirion the Defender, had himself graduated from Tir's elite _Celisté _university. He seemed less inclined to question an uppity _wineg_ than deliver a lecture._

_ "Our fetishes and foci could create a new site of power at the Hetch Hetchy lake, or even in the centre of San Francisco. A gate from which we might summon and bind to Earth dozens of havoc-wrecking spirits. Saito's troops would not be destroyed, however, and the astral signature would make Tir's hand in the matter plain. It would be the excuse to march against Tir which that odious madman craves. We could, of course, open a gate at some existing site of power such as the Mojave, summoning hundreds of potent spirits and masking any signature. But at such a distance from San Francisco or Hetch Hetchy, the Japanese could muster a formidable defence, before_ _–"_

_"Mission Creek!" Shavarus finally growled, "Beneath the Armoury!"_

_"Ah." Desorm murmured. Aeirion turned to the 'Frisco-based agent, "Mission Creek is a culverted river, sir, largely buried under the city. It connects to the Hetch Hetchy system, and it runs through the San Francisco Armoury's sub-basements. An old fortress in the heart of the Mission district, with a uniquely chequered history of pain and passion. The background magic count would both mask the gate's signature and enhance it. Superb."_

_"Hundreds of mighty, untiring water spirits." Shavarus's voice was low and heavy with triumph, "Our plans of the waterway will guide them, their hatred of unnatural confinement will drive them. They will pour out from the creek and destroy all 167 miles of pipeline, four power stations and a major dam, within hours and completely."_

_ "Ah. _If_ the Marines and the Japancorps refuse to vacate San Francisco?"_

_"I am no terrorist. They will leave, or they will die. The humans who cannot leave_ _–those who stood by, as our people were deported and abused_ _–will die. As the Amindians escaped the VITAS plague in their internment camps, the metahumans exiled to Oakland will escape the scourge. And humanity will know true terror, that their day is done, and their fall is nigh! The troll is stronger, the elf is quicker, the ork and the dwarf are should fear us, and they will! We must destroy them, if we would ever be free from hate, and when the doom of San Francisco makes them cower like dogs in their drek, we will! It may take years, but we shall see it begin tomorrow–the end of man and the day of metahumanity!"_

_"And San Francisco will still be a desert." Desorn's face was still and unsmiling._

_"No victory can be won without sacrifice. I had not imagined the Ghosts of Tir were unaware of this."_

_"Excuse us one moment, Shavarus?" Aeirion drew Desorm aside, "Lieutenant, ignorant humans believe that the elves are tree-hugging daisy eaters. Elves rule the happiest, most blessed nation on Earth, because we are its protectors! Imagine Tir's redwood forests, buried under a second Renraku arcology! The world's most powerful, elf-hating nation has one solid foothold on the west coast. Even a chance of destroying it would be worth more lives and land than this."_

_"Forgive me, sir. For Tir's sake, an acceptable sacrifice."_

_"There are still elves in San Francisco…" As Tarne spoke, he knew he was dead, "And Hetch Hetchy supplies most of Oakland's fresh water too."_

_"What is that _ Goronagit _ doing here?"_

_"Shavarus' contact, sir. Only he had actually met the troll of the hour, before now."_

_"Ah. An expendable asset."_

_The elves turned back to Shavarus, and both of them clasped his huge hands. Under cover of the uprising the Armoury would be taken. Hetch Hetchy and San Francisco, destroyed. If any other Ghosts had any misgivings, they gave no sign._

-0-

The security forces, apart from protecting corporate property from the uprising, had been almost entirely assigned to guard checkpoints and prisoners while the Marines suppressed the enemy. The guards at a certain checkpoint, in Shiawase blue, watched a huge figure trudging implacably along the roadside towards the city.

Clad in surviving scraps of armour and ripped clothes, the troll seemed covered in filthy water, burns and bullet-marks. Dead-eyed, aware of nothing but his path ahead, and not so much of that to acknowledge the rifle-scope framing his skull. He seemed not to hear the guards bawling at him to halt.

"Didn't look like he was going to." Muttered the guard behind the scope. His FN HAR rifle cracked; the shot flashed past the troll's head. He aimed again. Then the guard behind the shooter shot the squad's comms specialist, before shooting him.

The domination spell blazed in Shavarus' claw. As the guards wrestled down their brainwashed comrade, the troll Mage broke into a charge. A fireball roared before him, but he was too fixed on the killing to make another sound.

"Fragging trog!" The last man screamed, coughing blood over the road. Sharavus kicked him down.

"Is that all you can say, human? Well, then. This is all I can do."

His enemies were thick around him, but Shavarus took a moment to place his foot on the howling man's head, and let it fall with a crunch. Then he charged away into the scarred alleys and streets, towards the Armoury. With the future burning in his twisted heart, and a single Tir fetish on his person.

-0-

"Susan Lei AKA Fighter AKA _SeerauberJenny_. A former operative of Saeder Krupp's Agency. Ilsa Tresckow AKA Wizard. Graduate of Heidelberg University, likewise affiliated with the Agency. Harry Percy Fawkes AKA Warrior AKA Hotspur. An unaffiliated shadowrunner, active in Seattle and Hong Kong."

"Thank you, Rowan." Desorn murmured. The caretaker of the East Cut safehouse (Tir Ghost, formidable decker, and janitor at the Fuchi building, with several of their top programmers in his network) smiled charmingly. Holograms over his cyberdeck displayed the three faces.

With a refined mass invisibility spell that also slowed the release of body heat (ideal both for cold-weather survival and foiling thermal imaging) the Ghosts had casually evaded both the Renraku patrols and the Marines, detonating their boat from a safe distance. Aeirion had retained all the valuable magical items on his person, or intended to–they could guess where the missing one was. Now the Ghost's commander was paced a short track around safehouse where they had paused to assess.

"To our certain knowledge, the Agency was destroyed. However, these Runners may still be working with Lord Lofwyr. I perceived from her finger-movements that the young Mage had trained at Heidelberg…" None of the Ghosts were remotely naïve enough to protest that, with a seat on Tir Taingire's ruling council, the golden wyrm was necessarily on their side. "Rowan, Morgan? Put about some false reports to obscure our purpose. Monitor communications. Activate all our comrades, in the name of the Council of Princes. Find the troll, find those shadowrunners, and find out if the Armoury will be imminently occupied by a company of Marines."

Morgan silently Jacked in; Ghost doctrine mixed cybernetics and magic intelligently to create the Sixth World's most capable operatives. Over the next few hours, they reported back.

"Shavarus appears to have met with his surviving followers. A message left where he knew we'd find it…essentially states that he has the missing fetish and is heading to the Armoury. Naturally, Tir will be implicated if the _wineg_ uses our weapon."

"Naturally. He must have lifted it with a telekinesis cantrip during that skirmish."

"Clever monkey!" Lowri Greenwood quipped, her guns stripped down on the floor. Aeirion pursed his lips censoriously.

"If we had not understood the troll was skilled, unyielding and resourceful, we would never have proceeded this far. The _winegs_ are not without intellect; they're simply not like us. As the Ghosts of Tir we choose our missions with care, but we finish what we begin. For our unit's honour, for our homeland and people, for our lost comrade–we shall see this mission through. The die is cast."

"Death to our foes."

Greenwood smiled like a fox. She had seemed less grieved by Lankin's fate than eager to describe exactly how she'd avenge it, although they had been casual lovers. Anyone good enough for the Ghosts, and Greenwood was a deadly Gun-Adept, was permitted mild eccentricities. And it had kept Lankin from fondling Morgan, Aeirion's quiet and plain XO. If you couldn't bear a little thing like sexual harassment, you certainly weren't good enough for the Ghosts.

Desorn was rather better than good enough. In Calfree, UCAS and Aztlan he had worn a dozen faces, and had brought about, as far as he could calculate, the deaths of thousands. And that was very little compared to Aeirion the Defender's storied career. A trip to a hellish metaplane, where his old comrade had remained, had allegedly turned his hair white on the wrong side of thirty. It probably wasn't even the first time a city's fate had been in his hands.

One had simply not to feel so much about things like being tortured or betrayed; the death of a lover or the death of a city. Perhaps one day, he would even cease to feel for his forests and his music. Only his bond with his comrades, and his love for his country, could never die while he lived. That would be enough to close this mission, whatever the cost.

Morgan presently reported contacts between Club Eclipse and the Japancorps that referred to the coming operation. Overstretched, aware of multiple false reports and looking to each other to respond first, however...neither the Megacorps or the Marines were moving any notable forces to the Armoury.

The Runners had been located by a Tir agent, at Club Eclipse. Aeirion heard the outcome of that encounter with a sour expression.

"Have our comrades meet us at the Armoury. Tir agents only. Reports and rumours can be dismissed, but no evidence of Tir Taingire's involvement in this matter must ever emerge. The shadowrunners, their associates, the troll. All of them will need to be killed."

Desorm had already snapped Tarne's neck as they left the Embarcadero. The would-be Ghost had never woken from Hotspur's blow. He hadn't strictly been a comrade, just an asset, so Desorm was only a little surprised at how little he felt.

-0-

Ilsa told Kali everything Susan had heard of Shavarus' plans. She was only speechless for a moment.

"I hope you weren't about to charge off and save the city on your own?"

"Not even if our condition had permitted it. I'm fairly certain, from Susan's account, that our enemies will require hours of ritual to open their gate and bind so many spirits, even if they head for the Armoury straight away. This is a rather greater matter than a shadowrun; we need any allies that might exist. Whatever goodwill you have left with the Megacorps, I advise you to spend all of it."

"Alright. I'll call people. I'll get all my people calling people. You can take any transport you need." Ilsa raised an eyebrow, "What? I love this city. Music and businesses, restaurants and nightclubs; everything dreamt up and built up by millions of people. I mean to be big in this city, and I believe that means stopping some madmen from blowing it to drek right now. There should be merchants and Runners left downstairs–or else take Goro with you." She nodded at one of the cybered bodyguards behind her.

"_Danke_. I will first check if any Runners are willing to assail the jaws of death, for whatever nyuyen we have left."

"_Ganbatte kudasai_. And give my regards to Hotspur and Susan when they wake up."

"Indeed, I showed them to a room," Ilsa muttered, before heading down, "But I rather doubt those fools are getting any sleep."

-0-

Indeed, since Ilsa had eventually frogmarched Susan into the Harry saferoom at Eclipse, ordered them to straighten themselves out, whatever that took, and left with the key…

…they had been having what felt like the first blazing row of their lives, shouting at opposite bare walls of the tiny bedroom.

"…you could've been killed! Or, or…I can't even…!"

"Harry, listen to me! That troll beat me up, I killed for him, that's all. That's all our fragging job is! But I'd never have let him rape me. I'd have fought him, killed or died, and the elves would've wrecked the city tomorrow. I faced that, all of it I could! I was on my own, it was a fragging nightmare, but I had to do it–"

"NO! He could've really brainwashed you or killed you! Or beaten you down, like that night…frag, frag, SUSAN! Two years running from it, both of us–then you charge into that drek without me! Throw your life away like nothing! Don't tell me you had to it!"

"I had to save the city! Like we dreamt we'd do, when we were shadowrunners! I've killed and bled…but was I supposed to stay in Redmond, and have your babies? I had to be strong, and I had to do this without you, because YOU LEFT, Harry! I did this stupid thing, what about you?"

"I know, I'm an idiot! I fragged up, I wasn't there, and I don't care about this frag-up city! Some crazy chance to save it–I'd only ever want to save you! You're worth more than the world. You made everything make sense, you could take anything with a smile– but not this! I can't bear even thinking what you went through. I can't…I'm so fragging weak."

Susan turned her head. Harry was fighting tears back. So close to his dream girl after so long, he couldn't even look her in the eye.

"…I lost two teams. The Triads chased me over half the world. When I think of losing you…I couldn't even save you. You don't even know–"

Susan's arms fell over him like an adamant ring on a finger. Their wounds ached as they came together; she buried her tears in Harry's neck.

"Then tell me, you idiot. All the frag-ups, all the fear, I'll take them! I could take what that troll did, because of you. Just don't leave, don't go away…just fight with me. I'll frag up, you'll frag up, we could die tonight, but if you're with me that's all I'll ever need! You stupid, selfish, _perfect_–!"

The kiss was like punch meeting counterpunch. Everything raw and bitter, everything desperate and longing, all threw their lips together. Nothing in them could even try to part; no more fear, no more waiting.

Susan drummed fists on Harry's back, as he sunk his grip in her bum to roll their bodies over. He bore down through her lips. Legs knitted together like grapping, and their tongues were wet flames.

Harry struggled for some room to pull off their chafing armour, but Susan's arms were clinging around him. He realised she was shaking.

"Frag…I'm sorry."

"It's okay. Just hold me. I guess angry sex is too much, now…I was so scared, so long. I just need you to hold me. Please."

Her arms that had killed and saved kept trembling. He kissed the scars across her shoulders. Felt her deep-measured breaths and coursing heart as she clung to him.

"I was so fragging scared, Harry. I was stupid and reckless. I'm sorry."

"You were a hero, Susan. I'm sorry I was stupid and selfish."

"No, Harry. You're my hero. You're the only one who can hold me like this. I know you'll always come to save me."

"I always loved you, babe. I'm sorry I wasn't there."

"I love you too, silly. Don't ever leave."

Harry stroked her hair. Watched Susan's wide, pure smile spread from her tearful eyes. Sparring and fantasies in Redmond. Longings and their stolen night in Hong Kong. After so long dreaming, her hand safe in his…felt like coming home. To a peace like nothing his own life had held. A world of shadows dissolved in her eyes like sunrise.

Harry felt as if his life's experience had all been for this moment. He had to be her perfect hero, her perfect lover…but for his wounded, perfect love, only one thing was enough.

"Susan, please… tell me what you want."

"Well. I can tell what _you_ want, stud…"

She couldn't resist grinding–he had to kiss her. Again. She tasted like heat, felt like strength, as his mouth caught, rolled and stroked her pressing lips. Her breasts pushed heartbeats into his chest, shaking her with joy. He was finally with her. Desire too huge to be even felt simply moved them.

She still felt the weeks of terror under Shavarus. The clawing Halloweeners in Redmond, pulling her back. She had to gaze into Harry's tender eyes, and almost wept. He loved her, whatever she wanted, and she wanted to make love to the man she loved…

"We'll need to take it slow, Harry. Like it's the first time for us both."

-0-

The lights stayed on; they knelt on the bed. Harry watched Susan remove her own armour, gradually. Then her breasts fell from her top, her legs shone bare. Facing his battered, fighting angel on her knees, Harry didn't dare to touch her. Naked, she finally met his gaze.

"Oh, Harry…it's okay. I want you to love me. Thank you …"

They fumbled and sweated off his clothes like teenagers. Gently tasted lips as they reached out. Or gasped against strong shoulders–since Redmond, they had both been strong. Or simply gazed into beloved eyes, with desire for very much more than the half-hour they had left to look.

Susan laughed at the drunken tattoo on Harry's washboard stomach. And at the warmth of the silly, straining thing in her hand, that seemed to move men so much like a rudder. She stroked him, and his little tongue thrilled all her body, playing at the centre of her breast. Her skin felt taunt and fierce, pouring bliss through the channels of their flesh–not the strength to kill, but their power of flowing pleasure that joined their selves. Finally, Susan guided her love's breath-stealing fingers down from their gentle circles on her belly.

"Is this…?"

"Oh…yes. Yes. Right there. Right there, too! Don't you dare stop."

"You can go a bit faster with me, babe. Not that hard…yes. Down the front, just under…oh. Frag, I love you!"

"Just for this? You're such a boy. Ah, yes, yes, oh…feel me! You're messing me up! Also…ah! I love you too."

Then outside, they heard the blast of a Flamestrike. Susan barely shoved Harry behind the bed, and rolled away, as the saferoom door disappeared. An elf stood there, firing a silenced gun.

The bullet cracked the wall above Harry's tousled head. Snatching his handgun, always within reach of his pillow, he fired back. The elf ducked away. Summoning a Mystic Shield as Ilsa, in the corridor outside, threw more firebolts.

Then over sixty kilo of very angry, naked, weeping female Adept rolled from the room and shoulder-charged the elf into the wall. Susan had to be pulled off the Tir agent, or she would've thoroughly killed him.

-0-

"Word of advice, Hotspur? Never switch your comm off while dangerous parties are trying to kill you."

Harry's bad-puppy expression did look cute on him. Susan laced her fingers between his, and patted her boyfriend supportively. Ilsa suspected they would be a very annoying couple.

"Someone always wants to geek us. How did that fragger _find_ us?"

"The Runners left in the bar are talking of hardly anything but our eventful Run. That Mystic Adept assassin was a shadowrunner and Tir agent, disguised as a human–or I would have identified him as soon as he asked about our connection to Saeder Krupp. It was Anya's A.I.-speed search of records and security footage which told us you needed saving. The assassin set up an illusion of your room door, by the way, so he could open the real door without you noticing a thing. As expected of the Tir Ghosts."

"What? Oh, magic stuff. That elf was just lucky my man's got magic fingers–" Susan snuggled and smiled; Ilsa facepalmed, "–or I _really_ would have been angry. Oh, and thanks, Anya!"

_"Don't mention it. What else have I got to do here but help you? I'm really glad you're safe, I'm sure you'll be very happy, but I'm just going off to watch old footage of me and Kenji now, and cry a bit with a digital chocolate cake…"_

Kenji was Anya's pre-A.I. dead boyfriend, though her thoughts had been much more with her MIA father that day. Orion was out of comms range, presumably still protecting the Colma refugees. Bummer and Lazarus had vanished. Susan had been glad to hear they were safe, though very worried for Hailey, still in a corporate prison.

It was an hour before nightfall. The club floor where they'd assembled was empty and silent. Kali had shut Eclipse down for the duration of the emergency and set up a first-aid station in the foyer. Her Megacorp contacts, however, had yet to commit any response to the reported terrorist occupation of San Francisco's historic Armoury. Those local Runners who might've faced the Ghosts had all been quite canny enough to skip town already.

"So, it's just the three of us?" Harry's eyes were bright and hungry, "Three shadowrunners to save this city. Against a mad troll wizard, the Ghosts of Tir, and probably the fragging Marines. But after all we've faced, the paths we've fought down to reach this–"

"Please, spare us this once." Ilsa raised a hand, "We need to retrieve the paydata from Shavarus that will keep Kali and Japancorps from having us killed, as well as conceivably inducing them to protect us from the Marines. Otherwise, I would be on the next flight out of San Francisco."

_"Also, that's four Runners. Meatboy."_

"Alright, alright... actually, you can save me a seat on that plane if you haven't cooked up some counter to that mass-ghostform spell. We can't kill those fraggers if they're invulnerable."

"You expected me to develop a counter for ancient, unbelievably overpowered Tir magic, in a few hours?"

"You didn't try?"

"You would definitely try. Wiz."

Susan grinned at Ilsa. The Heidelberg wizard smiled back at her chummers wearily.

"I have some ideas. In any case, I estimate that we have a couple of hours or less until our opponents finish the ritual. I suggest we leave in ten minutes, after I've called Henry one more time, had Kali deal with that assassin, and made sure her proffered bodyguard isn't another Tir spy. _Alles gut?_"

"Yeah. All good, Ilsa." Susan stood up, strong and confident as she'd ever been, "Let's finish this run together."

As Ilsa marched away, Harry whispered to Susan that ten minutes was enough time for–

"_Harry!_ Did you notice, we're in the middle of a shadowrun? The biggest Run of our lives! I want you too, but we can have all the sex you want, after this." Susan must've seen in Harry's face just how much that was, since she smacked him. "Easy, tiger! Us, together, does not mean I turn into your mooning Asian babymama!"

"Yeah, I really was was worried about that…" Susan smacked Harry's chest again, "…for under a minute. I'm fine with just loving the strongest girl in the world. Shavarus and that dance-fighting elf don't stand a chance."

Susan glanced away, burning. In one leap of decision she reached out and hooked her thumb in Harry's belt. He held her cheek, kissed her, and about a minute was well spent before she could speak. She could feel that a little gunfire hadn't cooled his ardor in the least.

"I suppose I can be your girlfriend for a bit, before we face it all. What should I do with _this_ silly great thing, when we find a bathroom?"

-0-

Even if the Embarcadero hadn't quickly become alive with uniforms, a certain smuggler of 'California hot' BTL chips would still have ducked out of his current assignment as soon he'd seen the shadowrunners. He hid under a boat's tarpaulin, as the headbanded Warrior cut a path through armed orks before his eyes. Then slipped away once the Marines had thinned out, to call his boss in Chinatown.

"…_Warrior? Here_? Out of all the places in North America, he strolls into the city we've owned for over two hundred years?"

The smuggler sent a video. The moustache of the San Francisco Triad boss bristled like a dragon, and he started making calls. Club Eclipse was presently the hottest safe-hostel for Runners passing through San Francisco, and it was quickly confirmed that Warrior had entered with two women. With Kali's smuggling and Megacorp connections, a direct attack on Eclipse was swiftly vetoed.

"Get the best men we have. Shamans, Mages, snipers. Fill that shitbird with lead, the instant he steps out the door. Our descendants will speak of tonight after another two hundred years. How we avenged so many of our Yellow Lotus allies, and sent Warrior to hell."

-0-

"Why do they hate us this much, Takahashi?"

The Mission district had seen some of the fiercest fighting; tough as Lieutenant Arai was, he was exhausted. After a quick sideways glance, his comrade and lover rested against his shoulderpad.

"You know why they hate us, _anata_. But I still love this city."

Arai still loved it as well. Imperial Japan had nothing against homosexuality, but he had never seen it celebrated before he'd come to 'Frisco. After years of hard deployment in a barbaric, monster-haunted land–hated, bewildered, wrestling with a forbidden desire for his Warrant Officer–he had drunkenly poured out his troubles to a persuasive rainbow-haired nightclub operator.

Then soft music had come on just as Takahashi had sat next to him. Words had spilt out. The next week, they had gone together to another nightclub Kali had recommended, in the Castro District, and he had learnt that a true warrior must love.

The bodies on the streets of the Mission couldn't obliterate those nights in the Castro. The madness had to end; the Marines would end it. Then keep peace and order as they had come to do, which would be easier with the last of the metas shipped off to Oakland, or the makeshift holding centres outside the city.

As they rested in the battle-scarred Mission District substation, Arai's comlink rang.

"Kali-_san?_ _Oihayo goizaimasu_. Yes, he is well. What…?"

Kali told him about the plot to cut the city's carotid artery, and let San Francisco bleed out in anarchy and starvation. Metahuman terrorists. No official response. He knew she was reliable.

Less than an hour later, Arai had assembled his unit. Twenty-five battered and battle-tested men and women, who had been fighting all day. But Marines fought day and night, until the job was done.

"Gentlemen. We are going to occupy the San Francisco Armoury, and eliminate any metahuman terrorists that we encounter. I must inform you that we will not be acting on orders from above, but on sudden intelligence of a plot to devastate this city with vile magic. And on our own convictions, that we must slay evil immediately, and protect the innocent people of this city! As at the _Ikaeda_ Inn, where a handful of _Shinsengumi_ saved Kyoto from destruction by fire–we are going to save this city, for the honour of the Imperial Marines!"

Uncertainly or fervently, the marines obeyed their orders. Takahashi joked that the enemy was in _Honno-Ji_, a reference from a completely different period to the _Shinsengumi_–he preferred anime to samurai dramas.

"What about the shadowrunners, sir? The team that Kali said were heading for the Armoury?"

"From her description–the Runners from the Mission ambush. We will eliminate them as well, at the first opportunity."


	10. City of Ghosts

_The highways jammed with broken heroes_

_On a last chance power drive._

_Everybody's out on the run tonight,_

_But there's no place left to hide…_

_Oh, someday girl, I don't know when,_

_We're gonna get to that place_

_Where we really want to go, and we'll walk in the sun,_

_But till then, tramps like us_

_Baby, we were born to run..._

-Born to Run, _Bruce Springsteen_

_-0-_

_The Blue Sky has fallen, the Yellow Sky will rise,_

_In this year of _Jinzi_, let there be prosperity under heaven!_

_-Motto of the Yellow Scarf rebels, 184 AD_

* * *

Before they set off for the Armoury, Ilsa passed Harry back his dikoted katana that he'd lost at the Embarcadero. And she handed Susan her old yellow scarf she'd left at Club Eclipse two months ago, as _SeeräuberJenny_. Susan hugged her old partner fiercely, before knotting her father's scarf over her street armour vest.

"Susan." Ilsa said, "This could be my last chance to ask–"

"–about marriage? Aw, sorry Wiz! I'm taken."

"I noticed. I was wondering if your scarf had any special significance."

"Yellow Turban Rebellion, Han Dynasty?" Harry offered, to Ilsa's visible shock, "What? When it's about the woman I love, I can do a Netsearch."

Susan kissed Harry's cheek, before confirming that, by family tradition, her ancestors had brought a corrupted ancient imperium to its knees. Her father had worn the yellow scarf on all his shadowruns.

"If Hetch Hetchy is destroyed, it'll be the poor slummers and metas who suffer. The Megacorps will just leave them to die, but we're going to fight for their future. 'The skies have fallen, the Shadows rise. Prosperity under heaven, and hope." Susan had been a slugger, a singer, _never_ a poet, but she could feel that if tomorrow came, everything would change.

Saving a megasprawl, with Susan beside him–now Harry felt keenly as Ilsa how small a dream it had been. Even if Shavarus and the Tir were defeated, there would be more terrorists, and yet more reprisals from Saito's marines–his vengeful hate rolling over the city again, like a volcanic ash-cloud. The Japancorps' grip on the Baysprawl and the world would only grow tighter tomorrow. So long as San Francisco was still a city by tomorrow morning, not a thrashing, dying chaos.

"Let's do what we can, chummers." Harry broke the silence, "Save the city, slay some Ghosts, do the fragging impossible."

"Well, you do have a wizard." Ilsa swiftly readjusted her suit, her hood, her foci and her glasses.

_"You've got a digital ork, more like."_ Anya, rather than hacking cameras this time, had acquired a Sundowner drone from an Eclipse merchant. It hovered at their shoulders like a metal guardian imp full of grenades and medkits.

Susan wanted to kiss Harry, again, but there was only a moment left to meet his brown, bright eyes. Then she had to tighten her armour, let go of his hand to make a fist, and get ready to Run.

With _him_–her Warrior, Hotspur. Two shadowrunners at last. Both of them couldn't help grinning.

The custom Hyundai Shin-Hyung sports car loaned by Kali was waiting on the garage level, with her driver-bodyguard gnawing his moustache and tapping chrome fingers. This bruiser, one Goro Ishikawa, made it clear that he knew what he was heading into, but that Kali had committed to get his huge gambling debts to her Yakazu friends cancelled, and take care of his family. He was in to the death. As the four Runners were silent together, he alone had nothing to say.

Then, since Kali had also told them that Club Eclipse was surrounded by Triad forces, they all quickly planned out how they were going to break through that.

-0-

As well as the Remington sniper rifles and M79 grenade launchers overlooking the front and rear doors of Eclipse, the Triad had gunmen and shamans covering the side alleys. Another crew were watching the rear vehicle ramp, with a burn-scarred dwarf ready to toss a proximity mine. The Mountain Cloud Triad had moved a profitable lot of ordnance to Oakland for the MPA's attacks, but they'd eagerly repurposed a shipment, when a time to trade had become a time to kill.

Time crawled past, and dusk descended. The neon draping the formidable sides of club Eclipse like jewellery on a dowager stayed dark, but the streets were well lit. The snipers kept their grim watch from the rooftops, and the Triad Mage sent more near-mindless watcher spirits into the building. They needed to be ready when their quarry stepped towards a door, no frag ups. Hacking through Mitsuhama's hottest ICE to the Eclipse security cams had proved undoable, but no enemy watchers spying the ambushers out had been _seen_…

Then a wall of flame shot up over the club's front entrance, blinding in the gloom. A few fiercer 49's opened up at once.

"It's a feint, drekheads!" The Mage screamed into his radio, "Shamans, take stage left and right! Rear door, be ready!"

The side-alleys swiftly filled up with green toxic mist. The waiting before was nothing to what followed. The rear door snipers and grenadiers were straining towards a patch of streetlight, where the feared and hated Hotspur would appear–

–when Fighter dropped lightly onto the roof behind them. She had monkey-jumped from the highest window of Eclipse to the next building, with the distractions of the firewall.

"Mess with my man, scum? Mess with me."

She struck as she spoke, as the Triad snipers grabbed for handguns; one spat lead past her jaw before she punched through his. She leapt to a lower roof. A dwarf with a mine stared up at her, more guns rose. She flung down a Renraku stun grenade in an elegant arc.

AK-97 fire still flashed out, when the Hyundai sports car shot out the back of Eclipse with the garage door half up. Anya's Sundowner drone, zipping around the low sports car out of the gunfire, plunked out another stun grenade. No sudden blast stopped the car from roaring out and around.

Bullets clipped the ledge under Susan's feet, as she leapt from roof to fire escape. A stunbolt burst near her head. But then she was hitting the street, sprinting three steps to an open door and diving into the car as they sped away.

"Whoa! Did you see that?" Like it was the first Run of their lives, she was grinning.

"It was beautiful." Harry tried to sound casual, "Of course in Hong Kong, we'd usually exit with a rotorcraft–"

"Zip it, idiot!" Susan poked Harry's neck from the back seat. "You'll get enough chances to show your skills."

Harry was about to say he'd show her his skills after the afterparty when Ishikawa, in the driver's seat, wrenched the car around. A Triad ork smashed his Suzuki Mirage bike into the Hyundai's centre mass and flew over the car before he could shoot it up.

"Mind on the job, kids?" Ishikawa growled, speeding off once more. Ilsa smiled quietly.

Though Hotspur was a fair driver, Kali's bodyguard was a car chase pro. Central 'Frisco's streets were clear of traffic, since the ban on cars, and clear of people, thanks to days of chaos and bloodshed. But the Runners had no time for fear, and sure as drek no time to fight across the city on foot. If a few marine squads converged on the Armoury to arrest them for traffic violations, that was gravy.

_"Two more bikes with SMGs,"_ Anya had clamped her drone to the back of the car, _"Another one behind, with two pileon dwarfs and a tube launcher. More bikes further back. You up to another firewall, Wiz?"_

"Did I ever mention what my doctoral thesis is in?"

Ilsa flicked out a curtain of flame across the street behind them. One of the Triad bikes shot up the edge of some steps and jumped the flames. The other two leaders split off down side alleys, still chasing. Ilsa hissed in annoyance.

"What, your super-egghead thesis thing is _firewalls_?" Fighter shook her head, as Hotspur took wild shots with his Browning from the front window, "That's your most boring spell!"

"I suppose you never noticed that ninety percent of physical barrier magic is shamanistic? Once I have worked out a general incantation to replicate my personal ritual, a whole new field of hermetic–"

The Hyundai screeched round a razor-sharp bend, throwing Ilsa onto Fighter's chest. Hotspur barely kept hold of his gun; the slipstream roared on his face like a blizzard, even as the speeding, deadly chase fired up his heart. One tailing bike hit the side street wall, in an electric blast.

The Hyundai bumped the wall once, then screeched out again onto a dark street. Fighter saw a Stuffer Shack sign on the corner, in the moment before they shot off again. The city blurred, the roar of the bikes behind them was dull. Hotspur was grinning, but to Fighter it was as close and still within the car as a speeding coffin. Then Ishikawa jinked the car across the street, as a grenade blast smacked into their side. Hotspur jerked back from the shrapnel.

"Shut the window," The bodyguard snapped, "You're not going to hit anything. Grip onto something and shut your mouths, or you'll bite your tongues off!"

All of them were white-knuckle gripping something already. They crashed through a carpark barrier; Goro's cybereye whirred as he wrenched a zig-zag course through parked cars. One bike thumped into a van, but more were racing up behind.

"Hey, you've earned your nyuyen, chummer," Fighter shouted to Ishikawa over the engine, "You want to dump us near the Armoury, slot and run, we won't–"

"Do you ever shut up?" The driver shot back.

"I had to keep quiet for too long. You've got a family, right? That's why you're facing certain death for money? They need–"

"–the money they'll get from the Yakuza. Not a killer with a half-chrome heart they wouldn't even know. I know I'm likely going to die for your fragging shadowrun; don't talk like I'm an idiot, a coward, or your chummer."

Fighter had no response except to curse the Yakuza in Cantonese. Hotspur had to confess he'd spent four months as an enforcer for the Yaks in Seattle.

"Oh, don't worry, love. I spent a month way back breaking fingers for the Triads. Two years; there's so much we've got to share, after this…"

A tender smile passed between them–Ilsa could practically hear the birdsong. Then a huge figure leap into the Hyundai's headlights. A troll with curling horns and long dark hair.

Fighter saw Sarah's face; she howled at Ishikawa to brake. The Hyundai had frontal bars for a ramming escape, and they were going at seventy; Ishikawa was ready to run the trog down. But Hotspur was back in Hong Kong, where his chummer had tried to ram a troll and died–he snatched at the wheel.

The Hyundai trailed a howling skid across the road where Sarah stood, and crashed side-on into a lamppost. A dozen airbags exploded into Runners from all sides, like stunning foam fists.

-0-

As Fighter shook her head to clear the mind-shaking blow, over twenty armed metahumans came up in her vision. Shavarus' people, gathering round them from the boarded squats and wrecked food stalls of the Mission District. Only a few die-hard followers, scarred and hard-eyed, but more desperate Metas with fresh wounds and any weapon they could find. Harried and hunted; ready to take up arms against humanity and the world, or follow the leader Sarah had spent the day commending to them.

The Metas had seen off the Triad bikers with a few bursts of fire. They would have filled the Runners with lead while they were still trapped in the airbags, if not for Sarah's raised claw and roaring voice. As her big hand pulled Fighter out from the car by her neck, Susan couldn't make out her words–only that she saw blood in Harry's hair.

(No saving the city. No happy ever after. The undeniable, unimaginable terror of loving another Runner, and Harry had to feel this too, for her! But he could not be dead, and there was no time–)

"–_Shisho!_ What the frag are you doing here? We need to keep anyone from getting near the Armoury or messing with Lord Shavarus' ritual. What are you doing with those Runners? Another job for Shavarus, or–?"

"Shavarus mind-controlled me for two weeks and beat me bloody almost every day of it. He's doing something right now that'll kill thousands of metahumans, and we're going to stop him any way we have to." Fighter gently moved Sarah's claw away from her neck, as several militants levelled AKs at her head, "Do you want to come with us, or settle this with a fight?"

"STAY CHILL! DON'T SHOOT!" Sarah roared at her comrades, again. The face she turned back to Fighter was mute with huge anguish. Her tusks hung with her lips like a bitter burden.

_"Your boy's alright, Susan,"_ Came Anya's voice, _"Ilsa's out cold, but I've got you covered."_ The drone hovered beside her, grenade tube aimed at the metas.

Susan told Sarah how Shavarus had beaten her, how he made her grovel to the elves. She unstrapped her vest, showed the marks on her arms and neck. The troll girl's own nightmares roared in her chest; she tried to say that it couldn't be so.

He had said she was a beautiful troll. That she could be strong, that she had to be strong, that she would have purpose and value, in the world he would make…he had made love to her, without violence. But not with a trace of the love and sympathy in the eyes of this human, her friend, who'd just smashed all she had believed in to pieces.

With a tortured, rage-filled howl, Sarah drew her fist back. Susan did not move or raise her arms.

"Hit me, if you need to. I can take it."

"Of course you can. You're the hero saving the city, you're the fragging HUMAN! You're the hero, but you never got _gang-raped_, or gave yourself to a liar! You're not the dumb, stupid, worthless trog!" Sarah's head plunged up and down like a bull in pain; she struck her forehead with her hands until she bled, "I can't bear it anymore! This fragging world! Even if everyone dies, it has to _change_–and only _he_ can change it!"

_"You can change it, chummer–you can stop Shavarus,"_ Anya spoke up through her drone, _"Then a trog will have saved this city. Not destroyed it, and made all of us the same monsters they hate."_

Sarah might have been shocked that a tin can with rotors was giving her advice, but it had been that sort of week–and the low orkish tone of Anya's voice came through the drone's speakers clearly.

"Bulldrek!" Another militant still shrieked, "The Corps control the news, they're never going to say anything good about us–"

_ "It'll be the truth! And we'll get the truth out, everywhere! That's what shadowrunners do!"_

"You steal drek for the Corps! Shavarus is going to change the world!"

Susan could feel trigger-fingers tightening, but she stood still and looked Sarah in her tear-dropping eyes.

"Shavarus' way, or another way? For everyone in San Francisco, for every troll alive in the world tomorrow…it's your choice. Sorry."

Sarah didn't take long to think. She glared at Susan, then yelled to the other militants; they were heading to the Mission. A dark, wiry elf fired two bullets into her chest, without a word.

He would have shot her again if Ishikawa hadn't ripped through the airbags with his cyberclaws and got in front of her. The AK bullet hit him, as Hotspur shot the elf dead over the car's stricken hood.

Then Fighter charged at the guns, still bloodied from the crash, with Ki blazing from her fists and one howl of rage. She spun and broke an elf like a plank. Anya dropped her grenade, cursing militant idiots at full volume. Some were stunned, some fled, others were struck with fear–but an ork swung a bat, that broke on Fighter's arm. A troll's shotgun boomed. She dropped down, then spun up and kicked through his solar plexus.

Hotspur fired his Browning as he raced for another group. Their bullets cracked behind his flashing feet. Some ran, but he had to kill the rest, or he would die. Throwing his gun aside, he cut a zig-zag lightning path from ork to ork. A dwarf Street-Mage scorched him with a Powerbolt. Gritting his teeth, he stabbed another foe as he kicked her nose into her head.

A bullet clipped his arm. A shoulder hit had spun Fighter round, but she planted her feet and drove her good arm through another rib-cage. They were Adepts, with a power, a mission and a cause. The militant street thugs that didn't run all died. Sarah staggered up in an agonised roar, punching one of her ill-fated comrades into a wall, as Ishikawa and Hotspur took apart one last die-hard troll with a bat. Then the brief and brutal fight was over apart from the medkits and the groaning.

"SUSAN! You okay, you're–?"

"I'm chill. Better for not worrying about you, tiger–guess you wouldn't die if the world ended."

"Oh, tha–that's great, love. And I was just checking, not worried. I couldn't even imagine what could stop you–"

"–except death." Ilsa had finally crawled from the wreck to sprawl on the kerb, "Have you _Dummköpfe_…ach!…finally realised why shadowrunners can't fall in love? You both need…to be ready to watch each other die."

The two wounded killers, parted for so long, shared a glance that knew of nothing to stop their love now. Then they had to help Anya break out the medkits. All of them needed one; Sarah needed a Heal as well, but she was up strong as ever. Ishikawa's Kevlar-weave suit and bone lacing had saved his life. They'd burnt more than half their grenades and medkits before they'd even got to the Armoury.

"They were just defending their homes." Sarah glowered with sullen sadness over the bodies. "Couldn't take being shoved about anymore."

She glared again at Fighter, who had accepted she would share no more tears and embraces with her former student for the foreseeable. The troll girl finally turned to Ishikawa.

"What did you have to protect me for, squishy?"

"Seemed the right thing to do, _missy_. You're welcome."

Fighter suspected there was more, but they would never hear it. Ishikawa reloaded his Ares Predator, and suggested that they move their hoops.

-0-

Night had truly fallen. Ilsa estimated over an hour before Shavarus completed his ritual, but on foot and poised to meet more attacks, they moved slowly. Hugging the walls, scanning blasted windows and broken shopfronts. From a world of miserable slums and purpose-built corporate cities, they could feel the centuries there; a pioneer city built on a billion ambitions and hopes. On violence as well as song, throughout its history–but before the morning, one troll with one dream meant to end all of it.

The few signs or lights left unsmashed stood flickering weak, and there were still bodies left in the street. More militants, somewhere on the streets–and the gunfire from up ahead, they half-hoped, meant the Marines were already there.

They wouldn't see the Tir Ghosts before getting bullets through both eyes–but as Fighter had said before, you just had to feel. She and Hotspur both let their selves flow out and the night flow in. The hidden figure, the hostile eye, the aiming rifle; the stones in the world stream that Martial Defence snatched out. Ilsa, who the Ghosts would likely shoot first, walked behind Sarah's bulk.

Anya told the troll girl what Shavarus had planned, and what it meant. The children who would die of thirst, the women forced to sell their bodies for bottled water. Over Sarah's heavy silence, Anya asked Ilsa–why was there a fragging great block of castle, in the middle of a Megasprawl?

"You recall that this is California?" The Mage whispered, "They built the National Guard an Armoury about 140 years ago, in the fancied style of a Spanish Islamic fort. It was used later on for a sports venue, as was the old Mission compound. A boxing ring, then a film set, a BDSM porn studio, the world's first BTL factory–and a lunatic asylum. It has been vacant for the past five years and is thought to be cursed."

_"Isn't it? If Shavarus is using all that drek…?"_

"…the astral residue of human pain and passion, to tear a hole in reality? Magic doesn't kill people; humans and trolls do. Brilliant and mad may be a cliché, but…"

"…but what _made_ him mad?" Sarah's rough voice cut Ilsa off. Anya suggested she ask that of Shavarus herself, "I will. I don't know if I can fight him…but I'll do what I can."

They'd reached the junction of north Guerrero Street with 14th, which ran down past the north face and front steps of the Armoury. The wide, black walls already loomed over the block. The front faced an open street and parking lot, also the gunfire was coming from there. The plan was to head down Guerrero and round, to attack the castle's western side door. Anya glided out for recon, close to the asphalt, while Hotspur held at the corner.

"Okay, tiger?" Fighter whispered behind him.

"Don't know what fear is, remember?" His face toward the darkness was pale, "Want me to hold your hand?"

"Want to get slapped with mine? Focus, idiot."

Focus, focus, when she could have drowned her senses in all she felt and saw of him. He'd been amazing back there, she wanted to tell him, but they had to focus everything, without a trace of clouding fear, on all the things in the night that could kill them. They had to be shadowrunners…

_"Five dead marines on 14__th__ Street."_ Anya's voice in their ears, _"Fresh. No…four dead, one gutshot. Sniper–"_

There was no sound but a snapping drone rotor, and the _pock_ of the bullet on the street. Anya's drone shot back and crash-landed in cover as she cursed.

Ishikawa was pulled out a repair kit–but Fighter's senses blazed white hot. The back of Ilsa's head was near a window–she yanked the Mage down, as it blew out from behind.

-0-

All the Runners dropped to the floor. Ilsa threw a fireball into the shop behind them–but the sniper stretched out along the Armoury's battlements had shot through the building by threading a bullet through two windows. Fighter could picture Lowri Greenwood, stretched out behind a Steyr rifle and infra-red sight. Grinning, as they heard another _thunk_–a woman's groan of agony from the dying marine in the street. Sarah began shaking, until Fighter gripped her hand.

_"Think the marines are holed up down the street somewhere,"_ Anya growled, as Ishikawa repaired her rotor, _"There's a barrier over the front door. Couldn't see where the fragging Ghosts are at."_

"Maybe she knows more. The marine." Hotspur and Ilsa both grabbed Fighter's arms before she could rise.

"Susan?" Ilsa's voice didn't shake at all, "Snipers shoot to wound as a trap for heroic idiots, do you understand?"

"I'm a super-fast idiot."

"Carrying an armoured body back?"

"We could both carry her." Hotspur broke in. "I wouldn't risk a chummer's life for a company of marines, or yours for a fragging battalion, but you're you, you have to save her–and it could get her chummers on our side for a bit."

Fighter stared up through her lashes with shining eyes. She clasped her man's hand, and love drove out fear.

The bullet almost cut through Fighter's hair, as the Adepts floored it down the street. They snatched up the wounded marine by arms and legs; hauled hoop. More shots blazed from both sides of the street, some chasing them, some covering them. As Ilsa threw out fire to cover the Adepts herself, she strove to locate the shooters.

The gunfire blazing from the Chinese restaurant had to be the Marines–the Ghosts in the opposite buildings naturally had silencers and camo-cloaks, moving as invisibly as wind. A black and white barrier shimmered over the Armoury's door…

She jerked her head back, a moment before bullets nicking the wall threw grit at her glasses. She'd been Running long enough that her reflexes were worth a mention.

Crack shots that the Ghosts were, the Runners ran faster than they'd expected of humans. A bullet still lodged in Hotspur's vest, and the third sniper shot hit Fighter's leg. She fell, but she rolled to the wall, where Harry clung to her as Ilsa Healed her. Ishikawa–dumbfounded by what he'd seen–was left to treat the marine, a crop-haired young woman, who gladly confirmed that her comrades were holed up in the restaurant.

Within five minutes the Runners had dropped back down the next street, broken into the shop behind the restaurant (whose staff had spent the last 24 hours hiding under tables), and had the wounded marine shout through to her _nakama_ that they weren't the Ghosts, before Sarah broke through the adjoining back wall. Avoiding the doubtless-enraged sniper watching the front was worth a little property damage.

They emerged in a kitchen that had been filthy before the white cloud of plaster from the wall. Which also settled on the black armour of another wounded marine, a medic, Warrant Officer Takahashi and Lieutenant Arai, wounded and grim faced.

-0-

"…didn't we meet at Eclipse, Lieutenant?" Hotspur smiled urbanely as he could, when they were all crouched on their haunches, "Small world."

"As you say…_Ronin_." The IJM officer stoically inclined his head, as if they were about to duel. Takahashi moved between them; he was weary but smiled as innocently as ever.

"_Ronin-san?_ Our Lieutenant has just led us through some serious fighting, but of course we are deeply grateful for your rescuing our comrade. Grateful for your assistance, in this situation. And since we must fight alongside honourless shadowrunners to protect this city, we will readily fight beside a troll as well!"

It was a well-intended joke, told with a smile–that faded, as Takahashi looked into Sarah's eyes. Fighter stopped the troll girl with her hand.

"Let me take this, Sarah. Chill?"

"Chill like a calm fragging lake…_shisho_." The growl had a scream in it.

"You're ready to fight beside a troll?" Fighter looked over the marines, with her fists balled, "Do you know what it would take for _her_ to fight beside _you_? I know you've lost chummers to this city, I geeked some of them, but that's on me. She did nothing to you, and you took everything from her, even her _humanity_–you Marines! And then are you going to look at her like a monster? When she's come here to save your hoops instead of tearing you to pieces, _what is the honourable response?_"

Arai seized Takahashi's shoulder. Only the female marine, who Fighter had saved, hauled herself up and managed a shaky bow.

"All chill then?" Hotspur broke the silence, "_Nakama_ to the end, until we've saved San Francisco?"

"Definitely. Just like the anime, _Axis Powers Akatsuki_." Takahashi grinned (Arai actually cracked a smile at his lover's geekiness), "Everyone fighting together, under the Rising Sun."

(Ilsa was impressed; Hotspur had subtly made sure the marines wouldn't try to kill them until after the battle was over. Even Susan had to realise what was coming; one saved marine did not balance sixteen dead between them. She herself, of course, would be ready to kill the surviving marines as soon as their usefulness ended. She'd betrayed nearly everyone but Susan, since she'd fallen into the shadows, and killed without mercy. Even Anya, before there'd been nothing of her but a copied A.I. She was alive, and would remain so…

…for her work? For the People's University? For Henry? Good things, but she felt suddenly exhausted…)

Keeping low, Hotspur glanced into the restaurant proper, as a wounded marine was propped up at the back to watch the hole. At the front, the security shutter was down over the shattered window; another hole had been blown in a side wall for a quick escape. Three more marines were crouched with their H&K rifles by loopholes they had cut; two more had been shot through the loopholes in their heads. Saito's finest were unmistakably exhausted, and the Runners could sense their despair; but there were few visible signs of emotion and no question of retreat.

"There cannot be many Tir out there; that is _infuriating_." Even now, speaking of battle lent animation to Arai's face, "Perhaps two elves in both the buildings at the Armoury's northern corners, where they can cover the front and sides. Magical barriers on the doors. One accursed sniper, using cameras to watch the side doors–our rigger saw them, before he was killed. We've lost fifteen good men out of twenty-six, to less than ten daisy-chewing elves. Our comms have been hacked, so we cannot call for backup."

"But you're not going to retreat?" Ishikawa did sound hopeful.

"Not even if we could do so safely. We are Imperial Japanese Marines."

Takahashi sighed and clenched his fist over his heart. Arai's grim-jawed resolve in the face of disaster actually struck Hotspur as rather epic–though Fighter and Ilsa thought it was schoolboy stupidity.

"Are you a summoner, ma'am?" Takahashi earnestly asked Ilsa, "The best way to pass those barriers–"

"–would be to send a spirit through, to smash the empowering crystal." Ilsa thought quickly, "Are you certain the side doors are also protected?"

"I sent six men on a flanking attack. They were driven back despite their best efforts; I believe only two–"

Then they heard the little _clack-cough_ noise of a silenced automatic. The casualty facing the hole at the back slumped down. He had seen nothing; the Runners had heard nothing behind them. They were facing the Tir Ghosts.

Fighter saw the balls of light, writhing like spiders, flying into the room. She could have thrown grenades back, but not burst-spells. The lightning would stun all of them the manaball didn't kill, and a few seconds of gunfire would finish it all. Unless she moved first, if she could…

Hotspur flew across the kitchen as Fighter threw herself at the spells. Their Mystic Shields were already forming. They might have shoved each other away, and died. But their arms that weren't shielding their eyes ended up clutching each other, as the spells they'd blocked with their bodies went off, hurling them down. A storm of fire–Arai's rifle, the Ghosts' Steyrs, Anya's shells, Flamestrikes–passed over their smoking bodies.

When the smoke cleared, one Ghost was laid out in the shop behind, blonde hair falling from his hood like a broken angel. The marines' quiet medic had been shot dead, and so had Goro Ishikawa.

Sarah charged and fell on the fallen Ghost, to make sure of his death or trample him to paste. The second wounded Ghost who'd ducked to one side of the hole, put three bullets in her back.

The elf would have slipped away on his slender legs, but Ilsa threw up a firewall behind him. Rather than using magic against a Mage, the commando rushed her with inhuman speed, ducking under her Flamestrike. He stabbed fingers into her neck, shoved her towards Arai to catch his bullets–but it was the wounded female marine on the floor that emptied her sidearm into the Ghost's back.

Ilsa came within a inch of burning down Arai before he shot her. She saw in his narrowed eyes he very nearly did. But they needed his marines, he needed her for the barrier...finally and slowly, the rifle lowered and the sparks vanished from the hand.

-0-

Fighter and Hotspur needed all the remaining medkits but one; they looked and felt like lightly grilled steaks. Sarah furiously refused anything but a Heal for the bullets lodged in her huge back, insisting she couldn't die until she'd done something. It was a miracle the back wall hadn't collapsed yet, though the workers hiding in the shop behind had been killed by the Ghosts as they passed.

"Who was he?" Arai bowed his head towards Ishikawa's corpse.

"Someone from San Francisco." Fighter carefully closed his cybereyes. Then she rose with an attitude that said she'd had enough, "If I draw off the sniper–if I jump from another building again–"

"–you will be shot." Ilsa rasped, rubbing her throat, "She has seen how fast you are, she will not miss. An earth elemental could shield us, and pass through the barrier–but they lumber, it would be shot to pieces. The more pressing issue is how they were able to trail and attack us…Anya? You've been hacked, haven't you?"

Silence. Then the drone shuddered in mid-air.

_"Fragging, fragging frag!"_

"I should have known it, when the sniper conveniently missed you."

_"They snuck a worm in, a can of mil-spec worms, I never noticed! Hacking isn't just power, frag, frag!"_ The sundowner was now shaking like the lid of a pot. Arai aimed his gun at it furiously, but Fighter only demanded to know if her chummer would be okay, _"I can keep my core code clean, I'm not going to start shooting you, Susan…but I'm only just hanging on!"_

"Anya!" Ilsa's word flew out like bullets, "Did your father tell you how we broke through the Agency? With the explosives?" The drone nodded, "A flanking attack, by stealth. Take out the cameras–"

_"Okay, I've got my microphones and optics back! The last thing the Daisy Eaters heard was flanking attack and cameras! Now, what's the plan?"_

"Oh! You mean like the Agency, when you bluffed about explosives, then took out the bugs so we could make a real escape plan! You two should be really great chummers, you know?" Ilsa glared at Fighter; Anya would've if she wasn't struggling.

"Tell me all about the Agency, babe, when we fragging get through this alive." Hotspur hadn't let go of her hand since they'd almost died together, "What the frag is this plan?"

"Anya can overload the cameras watching the side doors, through her link to the Ghost's decker. The sniper should move to repel a flanking assault, but we will attack from the front."

"Straight past maybe four Ghosts covering the street. Crack shots with thermal sights, Aim spells, _and_ Smartlinks."

"The earth elemental will give us some protection. You have more speed, armour and odds of survival than I do–and we have no time for anything else."

"Not if they saw through that drone how few of us are left." Furious but controlled, Arai reloaded his rifle, "I will charge with you. My men will provide covering fire and hold the daisy-eaters in place. Takahashi, I leave you in command–"

"Don't you dare even talk about leaving me…sir." The marine Mage gazed into Arai's hard, beloved face, "I'm a marine as well, before anything else…whether we die out here or in there, let's stay together."

"Susan," Harry whispered, painfully, "I thought I could go through anything, if we were together…but what if they miss me out there, and hit you? I'm…fragging scared, more than I've ever been in my life. I don't want you to go."

"…oh, Harry. if I'd stayed in Redmond, keeping your bed warm and popping out your kids…would I be me? The girl you love? I know it feels drekky, I'm feeling it for you, love…we're both idiots. But we've got to face it, what might happen. Be heroes, for us and for everybody else."

_"I'd fly out and distract some more,"_ Anya's voice was buzzing now, _"But I don't think I can blow those cameras without letting their decker grab this drone, so you'd better smash it. I was fresh out of grenades and medkits anyway." _

"That's not what we care about," Fighter told her firmly, "Will you be okay?"

_"Yeah. I'm in the Matrix–a few days of purging code, I'll survive. Thanks."_

As the marines aimed through the barrier, and the runners gathered behind the door of the next building, Fighter and Hotspur had a minute or so. To try and think on their love lost and dead, to not think…neither way worked. Arai stood calm and ready. He grated at Hotspur that samurai, unlike shadowrunners, faced death with death accepted into their heart for a greater cause. Sarah glowered at that but stayed silent.

"'A man's true worth," Ilsa muttered absently, "Is established when he gives his life for his principles.' Henning Von Tresckow."

Fighter's love still tortured her with fear, but, weak as she felt, she had to run. For the innocents than Shavarus and the Tir had killed and would kill–and to prove that would always remain at her hero's side.

She let go of his hand. The cameras sizzled in the distance. Sarah smashed Anya's drone with one claw, Ilsa's earth elemental surged up out of the street, and then they ran.


	11. To the End

_…he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain,_

_Up which a lean and foolish knight forever rides in vain…_

_The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,_

_That once went singing southward when all the world was young._

_Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold_

_In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,_

_Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,_

_Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes!_

_ "…It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth._

_Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth."_

_They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,_

_From temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;_

_They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea_

_Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be;_

_On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,_

_Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;_

_They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,_

_They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound…_

–Lepanto, _Chesterton (remix)_

* * *

The door of the Armoury, the barrier ahead of their racing feet, was a shifting chessboard mesh that stung the eyes. They could have struggled through it, but the Ghosts would have shot them down like soldiers caught on barb wire. As they shot Fighter–Takahashi Healed her in mid-stride before she fell. Then bullets punched Ilsa's Stoneskin black, her mouth bloody. She had to Heal herself or go down, which would mean dead.

Her earth spirit knuckled ahead, thumping the asphalt. Its spells and Shields were all that kept them running through the bullets. They barely heard the covering fire behind them, didn't know if the three marines were already dead. A handful of seconds seemed superfluous time to accept peace with their own deaths. Hotspur truly realised that he did not care if he died, so long as he saved Susan and San Francisco. It didn't feel heroic; he just could not go down, would not stop running.

The earth spirit's bullet-cracked black bulk pounded through the gate. The terror of the charge reached a momentary peak. Then a stone fist shattered crystal on the barrier's far side, and it winked out. Almost the same moment, the spirit's Shields vanished, and the unseen Ghosts sent a bullet under Takahashi's chest plate.

Arai caught his comrade's arm as he went down. He staggered, but Sarah seized the marine's other arm as bullets struck her back. Howling like a bull, she charged for the gate, with Arai and Ilsa, Fighter and Hotspur. Dragging Takahashi in a trail of blood.

The elf hidden inside the door thrust a straight sword at Fighter. She rolled in beneath it and Hotspur sliced through green armour, spraying Ilsa with blood. The Mage fell down in the unlit hall with the rest of them, swabbing her glasses, as the gunfire across the street outside danced on.

"_Taka-chan!_ You're going to make it…" Arai groaned, with the Mage's hand still locked in his. Harry and Susan finally realised that the marine Lieutenant and Mage were together, but there were faint footfalls in the next room. They were all up and moving already.

The room past the entryway had been a ward in an asylum; the elves were crouched behind beds or cupboards, raising automatics. The Adepts kicked the doors wide, as a fireball and Arai's stun grenade flew ahead. The blasts bought them seconds to charge in. Ilsa threw her Flamestrike where she saw a fetish, but the Tir squad medic gestured; scorched flesh flowed back pale as snow. The elf shaman got his summoning off, and a swirling wind spirit spat lightning back at Ilsa.

It was a small room, but aimed shots still echoed and filled it. Bullets punched at Hotspur's street armour. Martial Defence made Fighter move, a second before the shot that singed her hair. The Runners saw trained iron through the gloom, in luminescent eyes–but their paths had forged them faster and unyielding, both of them. There were even hospital beds to dodge under, or over, or throw up into shocked, thin faces. They closed the distance as Ilsa burnt down the medic and Arai shot the shaman between the eyes.

A bearded elf got under Hotspur's guard. Harry took a combat knife across his side before he swung in his elbow and chopped down on the backswing. Fighter was lucky; nothing struck her as she flicked out a low kick to break a shin, then hook into another elf's jaw above his swinging gun-stock. The squad leader dodged her back-kick, levelling a handgun. Fighter had to lunge into her, shatter her breastbone, before side-stepping the downed elf's knife and kicking him all the way down.

Lucky? Unwounded in a fight against trained soldiers, even if all her spirit had conquered made her stronger than them? Or lucky to be alive, whatever the foe? On the threshold of all she and Harry had dreamt of, she might still die–unless they were harder, sharper and stronger than the best they had been before.

-0-

The weak, wire-caged light flickered like a prisoner's sanity, as Arai covered the onwards door with his compact Nissan Optimum rifle. The Armoury's darkened stony corridors and rooms evoked the fortress it was. The beds, wheelchair and restraints from the asylum were mouldering and discarded, which only increased the foreboding.

Ilsa could feel the residue of abandoned, bitter dreams on the nape of her neck. She wondered if paracritters, or a nest of ghouls, had moved into the empty fortress after the pornographers, BTL dealers and ruined property developers had gone. They'd need to stay alert, all the way down to the basement, after they'd taken a minute to breathe.

Fighter had rooted some old medkits out of a cupboard, so Takahashi had got shakily to his feet and thanked Sarah with a Heal spell. With four bullets in her already, the troll girl had thunderously staggered into the fight, taking out two elves stunned by the grenade and getting shot again. Tough as trolls were, resolute as she still was, simple blood loss had left her white, heaving in breaths.

"How the frag did so many Ghosts get into the city?" Hotspur glanced over the nine green-armoured corpses.

"The sniper and the gunmen outside were Ghosts." Arai grated, "Those were most likely Intelligence Directorate troops. Not spies or Ghosts, but crack fighters. They hide in silence, until activated for such an outrage as this."

"After all our work, Tir had so many soldiers in this city." Takahashi hung his head.

"When this is over, we will root them out–"

"Didn't you fragging try that already?" Sarah snarled at Arai, "Didn't you think before that all the elves were Tir, all the trogs were gangers or terrorists? Isn't that why you want to kill us?"

"Not so." Arai met her glare with a face of stone, "Saito-san intends to separate the races, to bring peace and order. This city–this continent–proves that humans and metahumans cannot live peaceably together."

"What about when we dragged your boyfriend out of the gunfire? You want to banish us, but we're not going anywhere! Unless we die in the slums, or your sweeps, or don't come back from the detention centres! Don't you understand why we followed Shavarus?"

Takahashi looked plaintively to Arai, whose immovable gaze dipped for a second.

"Some marines have acted overzealously, or shamefully. I regret this. The worst chaos descends when professional soldiers do not obey their orders."

"It _almost_ seems trite to remind you," Ilsa muttered, tending her burns, "That 'orders are orders' has an unfortunate history as a defence."

"And do you need orders to save the city?" Fighter cut in, "Sarah, I can't even imagine how you feel about going against Shavarus, but you are doing it! Walking your own path! Aren't all of us doing this for ourselves, to take Shavarus down for good?"

"Yes." Sarah's growl was painful as a saw, "For what he did to you. And to me."

"For our comrades, for justice itself…" Arai's face was a steel mask, "…the terrorist must die."

Takahashi nodded loyally, as Fighter and Warrior exchanged a loaded glance. Whatever Shavarus had done to Susan, however it had ended, it hadn't ended.

The of those weeks would whisper poison in her mind, all her life. She only knew it now, and so did Harry. He couldn't see how he could save her without killing Shavarus. She didn't know how she could be free or strong again, until she slew the troll Mage that had violated her mind. For unresisting weeks she had shielded a spark of revenge, and now it was roaring. She might have charged down through the whole Armoury at his throat, but Ilsa's calming hand was on her shoulder.

United for the moment, by looming threat and an aberrance of terror, the party moved into the Armoury. Towards the steps to the basement.

-0-

Everything abandoned and broken cluttered the darkened rooms, smelling of damp. From museum piece weapons, through ancient cameras, to broken proto-cyberdecks. If more Tir were ahead and behind, if they were already too late, all their struggles would be as broken and lost in the dark as their bodies…Ilsa thought it, Susan buried fear in a wave of rage. Candles, instead of feeble bulbs, illuminated some dark passages and walls of graffiti. And the sinister reddish daubs lefts by squatters with more interest in unsavoury magic than street art.

Ilsa found she'd been right about the ghoul nest, when they stumbled on the bodies. A mid-sized swarm had been shot and burnt down, or neck-snapped.

"We'd have done the same." Hotspur muttered.

"Really?" Ilsa looked briefly, but astutely, "Some of these wretches were clearly fleeing when they were fried. And doesn't that one look like he's shielding the smaller ghoul with his body?"

"Can ghouls even have…?"

"…families? Yes, if they can still think, and all of them feel pain."

"Tir Ghosts could surely have evaded these monsters," Arai muttered uncomfortably, "Leaving them alive to delay us."

"So, they probably have something else planned."

"Aren't we against the clock here? We need to move!" Fighter snapped from the front. With an eye on the shadows ahead of them all, Ilsa kept moving.

They found the way down to the basement in a hall that had been a filmset–though there was nothing left but rubbish and chalk scrawlings. Sarah pulled the lock off the rusted door with a sound like a gunshot–but the doors slammed open onto a barrier of darkness, and trailing smoke.

Which congealed in a half-buried chalk circle. A burning red sword, a warrior in the black helmet of a samurai. Chill shot through all of their hearts, as a wind heaved its way through the Armoury. The laboured, stricken breath of the whole history-shadowed fortress.

-0-

"…a spirit of man." Ilsa spoke quickly, caught up in racing thoughts, "The residue of that ancient Lucas film, partially made here, must be incredibly–"

"Tell us later." Hotspur faced the dark spirit knight in an _iaijutsu_ stance, flashing a grin at Susan, "I've got this."

Less than a minute of fiery slashing and striking later, the spirit was ragged but Hotspur was bleeding. A low voice told him he was a fatherless degenerate, no hero. It was Arai who shot the spirit rather than draw his own sword.

It hissed that his father would despise him, if he knew, as it vanished (the marine turned pale). As a monster full of teeth and leathery skin burst out of the circle, spitting poison that smoked on armour.

"Break the circle!" Ilsa shouted, throwing fire at the new-spawned spirit with Takahashi. Fighter was already sprinting round and scuffed her foot through it. They killed the monster spirit, and the ruined circle raised no more, but then another door slammed open.

Twisted, even before forbidden magic had forced them into flesh, these two spirits were all bulging skin, metal claws and teeth in unsettling places. They smelt of oil, blood and sex. A third spirit was rising within the next room, from a second chalk circle.

Sarah punching at the black wall that barred their way–her fists sunk in like a sea of oil. Before she could howl, Fighter had seized her arm.

"We face our fears every day. That's the only way we go on! This is a stupid stalling trick and we're going to break through it!"

"If they hold us up, or wear us down, the Tir will have won!" Ilsa spoke quickly and clearly, "And…yes, we passed two other summoning circles with this pattern, behind us! In the old armaments museum, and the stockroom near the entrance. If we don't destroy them, _now_, they'll spawn enough spirits to overwhelm us!"

"_Marino-san_, you two get the museum!" Hotspur called to Arai, swiftly grasping the situation, "Susan, let's run and get the furthest one together!"

With no time for debate, the marines loped back on their path, and the Adepts sprinted. Sarah and Ilsa stood their ground against the _four_ fleshy spirits, now. The troll girl ground her tusks and raised her fists. Ilsa desperately knew, as she summoned a firewall in the spirits' shambling path, that another Tir ambush would pick their split party off like cheap candies.

-0-

Fighter's fury tinted her sight bloody, as they raced back to the stockroom. They had to stop the Tir's ritual in time, or they would have failed the whole city, failed as utterly as could be imagined. She was a failure, weak, unless she killed Shavarus _now_, and then this stupid distraction–

Rounding the corner ahead of Hotspur, she kicked the door open. An Abomination spirit, fast as smoke, lunged its triple row of finger-length teeth into her chest.

The space was too narrow to swing a sword–Hotspur thrust from his shoulder at a bulging eye, screaming without words. The spirit's rotten bulk belched a toxic cloud over them. It burnt Fighter's wounds and eyes, dropped her to one knee.

Ilsa had summoned such a spirit on their first Run (Ilsa who wasn't there, with Heal or Haste). She'd hoped never to face that hideous monster, and now it would kill her…no, she couldn't care. Nothing but the drive through stinking flesh with Killing Fists. Screaming over the gunshots that killed her ears. More desperate than she'd ever been, as fangs tore her–but even they carved her to death, into a scar-monster not even Harry would want–she had to keep striking.

The Abomination burst in black ichor. Two more clouds of decay and teeth loomed in the stockroom–this circle was slower and stronger. Hotspur charged the one on the right, tearing off his vest before spat acid burnt through it. With blood on her face, Fighter dashed around the left one, sliding through the circle before another spirit came out. She came up with fists up, throwing a punch of raw mana. Weaker than her Killing Fist, but it kept distance from that charnel-stinking maw.

Hotspur slashed at the Abomination, until it dissolved with a bubbling groan. Then his sword fell, as he ran to Susan and held her.

"Ow…"

"Love, love, are you okay…?"

"Yeah, but we don't have time for this, Harry. I mean it! Running together isn't date night with a few gunfights…I sort of thought it was too, and I rushed it, frag, we were made for each other…." Their kiss was brief and bloodstained, but deep.

"You got the circle in time, babe. I was so mad I didn't think. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Get used to it. I have to be okay. If I get hurt, even if I'd r-really been fragging raped, I…! I'd have had to…!"

She buried her face in Harry's neck. He held her tight as he could.

"You'd have got through it. And I'm here; I'm not going away. I'm going to kiss you better all over, once we've killed that fragging troll."

"Alright then." Fighter stood up shaking; Harry had to support her. Blood soaked into her underclothes, and she had one cheap medkit. "That elf with his slotting _capoeira_ as well."

"_Carromeleg_. Tir martial art. Tell him its _capoeira_ with a few more stances, he might get mad and frag up?"

Inwardly, Susan had sunk on the edge of despair, even with a city to save–but Harry's smile raised her own again, like sunrise on the moon. Still, they had to get back to Sarah and Ilsa, even faster than they'd come.

-0-

Ilsa held back her last fetish, but Sarah's fists pulped and tore through the flesh spirits. When a squid-like monster snuck around her, she clawed at its eyes until it unwound, then stamped it down. Ilsa's Flamestrikes cut through the gloom, keeping her sides clear. Until the troll Adept kicked her foot down through the circle, up through the last monster. The bitter, endless human darkness of the Armoury sunk back to the rest that clever elvish magic had disturbed.

They caught their breaths while Ilsa Healed Sarah. She told the troll girl she'd done well, which seemed to do even more good–Sarah grinned boldly, straightening up. The dark wall barring their progress winked out; their chummers had dealt with the other circles.

"Don't say this is it," Ilsa raised a hand, "There could be another ambush. We wait for the others."

"Okay, sure. But wouldn't the elves have hit us while we were busy with those slotting spirits?"

"One would expect so. But the last moment anyone would expect would be–"

Ilsa was already moving, as the grenade flew from the doorway into the open hall. No cover except the basement steps. That Sarah shoved Ilsa down with all her strength, as the grenade went off at her back.

The three elves moved quickly into the room. One aimed a handgun down at Sarah's head, another hefted more grenades to toss down the stairs. The one watching the corridor heard Fighter and Hotspur running. She greeted them at the corner with automatic fire.

Then a spirit rose up the stairwell, roaring like a furnace as it threw webs of fire at the elves. A lightning bolt scattered it, but then Fighter was leaping through the door, kicking the gunner down as she passed. The second elf sidestepped and landed a kick on her collarbone–he was practised, freakishly fast, and more kicks got past her guard before she punched him down.

Hotspur, bleeding from his arm, had cut down the third. Arai and Takahashi were rushing back, but Fighter only cared about Sarah on the floor. Her back, full of blood, metal and filth…somehow, she was still alive.

"…you have to leave me." Sarah groaned, faintly, "I only slowed you down. Trogs die first, never the heroes…"

"No, no, no!" Susan clutched Sarah's claw in both her hands, "You saved Ilsa. It was hardest for you, but you still fought! You're a real hero."

"If this ever gets out, this story…you'll be the hero. They won't even remember me."

"We will! And don't fragging talk like you're going to die!"

Ilsa was silent; she hated this kind of scene. She had used her last fetish, but there would probably be enough mana gathered in the basement for a summoning.

They gave Sarah the last cheap medkit they'd found in the ward, but she wasn't going any further. Hotspur and Arai were bleeding, Fighter was bleeding badly. Tough as they all were, they were about to face the deadliest soldiers in the world, made invulnerable by ancient magic. The time for speeches was past; Arai bowed briefly to Sarah, and Fighter led the way to the lowest basement. Too late or too soon, they would all go on to the end.

-0-

"…this would all be underwater, without the building's 20th century pumping system." Ilsa glanced at the wet, bare walls of the sloping passage, "I wondered if we might reverse the pumps to flood the Tir out, but it would take hours for the water to rise."

"…and then you had _another_ idea, right, Wiz?"

"Threatening to release evidence of Tir's involvement; but without Anya, we cannot do so. No, this will have to be a straight fight. Exactly what you both always wanted."

Hotspur and Fighter shared a lightning-fast smile. Arai and Takahashi moved stoically on. To the corner of the passage that opened on them, to the end of their Run and Shavarus' dream of destruction.

The black waters of Mission Creek, flowing through the lower basement of the Armoury, were spanned by a crude sheet-metal bridge. A wall half-way across had half-collapsed, making the basement floor seem like one giant cavern. The pumping machinery past the bridge, and few collapsed walls, were illuminated by a sickly pearl-white light. As were the thin figures of two elves, and the mountainous form of Shavarus. Their chanting was a language like whirlpools and bubbles in the ocean.

Ilsa could see the packed, writhing forms under the bridge, their scales and eyes. Smelling of mud, silver, toxic waste and mountain pine; everything that River was. Poured out from the metaplane of water over the past hours, instructed in their path along Hetch Hetchy from the Pyramid data. Empowered by refined magic and the primal, dam-breaking fury of waters roaring to the sea. She shivered at the proximity of such power.

Desorn, the dark-haired Adept, in green armour now, was watching the bridge. His thin, beautiful face seemed like a white knife in the darkness. Fighter couldn't see his eyes, but she could feel his inhuman alertness.

"There must be more," Arai hissed, "Hidden. I could shoot him from here–"

"No." Susan cut in, "He'd sense your bloodlust before you pulled the trigger."

(The Adept would have already sensed their _sakki, _as samurai had called it, if both Runners and marines hadn't suppressed even their feelings of aggression, carefully as the sounds of feet and voices. But only a Zen master, a psycho or a robot could actually aim a gun to kill without a prickle of hate)

"Swimming, or even floating across, under the bridge," Ilsa stared at the river, full of enraged spirits, "Would be suicidal as charging across without cover. I should also mention that their preparations have… about five minutes remaining."

Five minutes to save San Francisco, if there'd ever been a chance. Perhaps the most desperate minute of their lives passed in silence, before Fighter asked Hotspur if he had ever tried wall-running.

"The Ki technique? You'd better believe I tried, but barely–"

"Same here. That should be enough."

-0-

Thankfully, their end of the bridge was dark and the river was low. If they'd even touched the water, the massed spirits would have chewed them up. Fighter and Hotspur gripped the bridge from beneath, fingers hooked into the perforations that covered the metal sheets. Feet held up by the thin field of external Ki that Fighter had watched Orion run up walls with. They were strong, they were masters of their own Ki…but it was like holding up their own weight by their toes, for every silent, straining foot. Ilsa and the marines waited at the head of the bridge, still and silent in the shadows.

Their blood dripped into the creek, making the spirits hiss. Desorn glanced briefly at the water. Before she could fall, Fighter struck a metal plate aside and flipped out onto the bridge. Hotspur leapt out beside her and they rushed at the Adept–as gunfire blazed out from either side of him.

Arai shot one of the Ghosts' hidden marksmen across the length of the bridge. Ilsa threw up a firewall for cover, half-way down, and sprinted forward with Takahashi. She saw bullets striking Hotspur and Fighter, but they were still up. She sent a Heal flashing over them, another Heal, and collapsed from mana-drain. Takahashi caught her arm, as he sent out a Flamestrike. And Desorn calmly swayed to one side, then leapt into a double spinning kick. Fighter ducked it by inches, muscles blazed with Ki and Haste, as Hotspur chopped his sword in from the other side.

"The brainwashed Kung-Fu girl and her knight," The elf observed, "Impressive that you could join us. To observe our great work, perhaps?"

"TO STOP YOU!" Fighter roared, chopping down at a low kick and splitting air with a punch "With real fighting, you mad, evil Riverdancing pansy!"

"Do you wish to kiss my foot again, wench?"

Desorn's boot shot at Fighter's mouth–she blocked, but it split her forearm's flesh like wood. Hotspur furiously cut through Desorn's side; the Ghost leapt back, deflecting a sword-stab with a twisting kick.

Takahashi had finished off the Ghost that Arai had shot, and Healed Ilsa when the other gunner tagged her through the firewall–this Ghost was a Gun-Adept, shielded from their Flamestrikes. Arai kept up his aimed shots from range, but camo-cloaks melted into the cover of brick-heaps and machinery. A shot hit his arm, but his firing hardly paused. Takahashi glanced back at him, fearful–as a bullet struck his own midriff, dropping him. Tir Ghosts did not miss.

Desorn's lightning kicks deftly countered the reach of Hotspur's sword; he danced between them, raining blows, negating any advantage of two-on-one. Fighter tagged him with one lucky kick, darted round in another effort to get inside his guard–while Hotspur broke away, dashing for Shavarus and the Mages.

Another Ghost stepped out, as he passed. Hurling himself flat, Hotspur barely kicked the spitting rifle off-target. The Tir elf dodged his sword thrust, threw a kick at his head that he caught on his arm; then Ilsa's Flamestrike burnt through the elf's chest.

As Hotspur turned back to the ritual, the Mages roared like a falling sea, and dropped their arms. In the creek, the army of water spirits churned, keened, and leapt over each other like shark-mouthed salmon. Within a minute, all of them had rushed down the creek and away from the Armoury. Aimed at Hetch Hetchy, to burst dams and waterways, with the fury of wild water unrestrained.

-0-

As the roaring died away, the fighters stared at each other. Arai gazed at Takahashi, as the young man gasped in his blood. Desorn and Fighter breathed hard, as she ground her teeth and he almost smiled. Aeirion the Defender _was_ smiling, and Shavarus' huge lips peeled back from his tusks in ecstasy of triumph.

"So it begins. The day of metahumanity; our freedom from fear. I am so very glad you came here to witness it, Fighter. When my allies have departed, and yours are dead, we will remain here. I will sanctify this night with your agony."

The hate that burned in Shavarus' eyes was insatiable. Hotspur measured the distance between them, as his eyes narrowed like blades.

"Indeed." Aeirion clapped the troll on the arm, "The cause of righteousness prevails. Only another pointless fight remains, since we can allow no witnesses to survive. In thirty minutes, the water spirits will reach Hetch Hetchy–"

"Good." Ilsa snapped, dismissing her firewall and moving forward, "That means we have thirty minutes to persuade you to call them back. Any ideas, Lieutenant Arai?"

"Kneecaps." The marine grated, advancing slowly over the bridge, "Then burn them by inches from the feet…"

Arai had never tortured anyone, but Takahashi was bleeding out before him, and samurai Trid-dramas had given him fulsome ideas. Aeirion let out a high, rich laugh, perfect teeth flashing in the weak light.

"It's hard to see the one you love shot down, is it not? I wouldn't personally know. I have literally walked through hell for the sake of Tir Tairngire. There is nothing conceivable you could do that would turn me back from this purpose."

The white-haired Mage seemed more like a crazed dark wizard than the soldier he was. Desorn and the surviving Gun-Adept simply nodded; they'd both withstood torture before. The female Mage, Alys Morgan, smiled; devotion made her plain face lovely. They were true patriots, and the same motives that drove Arai heart and soul had made them shoot Takahashi down. It chilled him for a moment, but his resolve was iron–and love for prince and country impressed the Runners not one bit.

"You presume that you could even defeat us?" Shavarus sneer-snarled, "With our magic, and our strength, human scum?"

That was when Ilsa saw a flash of hope–and she saw that Aeirion saw it. Fighter and Hotspur didn't, but they weren't about to give up. All of them moved at once.

Hotspur was poised to charge Shavarus, but the Gun-Adept had his Steyr aimed, would have shot him dead. Aeirion had the crystal in his hand that would render all the Ghosts invulnerable–and Shavarus was tracing out his Control spell rapidly, aimed at Ilsa. She had no fetishes left, any spirit she might have summoned had already been poured out towards Hetch Hetchy–

–no. The pumping mechanism, and an unemptied septic tank. A hideous water spirit, covered in brown pustules and eyes, congealed above the tank and fell on Shavarus. Arai fired at the troll, as he raced down the bridge for cover, and the Control spell fizzled. As Hotspur threw himself at the Gun-Adept, as the shot nicked his trailing headband–and as Morgan's Chain Lighting spell hit Ilsa, Arai and Fighter.

Fighter's Mystic Shield held; she kept grimly warding Desorn's whip-fast blows and punched back, breathing hard. Arai gritted his teeth through the burn, diving down behind a collapsed wall. Ilsa had to take the pain, although from mana drain, and her aching, Healed bullet wound, she was an inch away from darkness. Dropping to her knee, throwing herself into cover, then she had to–

Aeirion raised an eyebrow, as Ilsa's gestures inverted his, and her magic touched the ancient, mighty working between his hands. Half-dead, glasses cracked, the Heidelberg Mage was still assaying a counterspell, for magic she'd seen _once_ before, in combat! A true prodigy, hardened by the shadows…no. Not even a genius could develop a working counter to Tir magic so quickly. Hadn't these persistent Runners used misdirection before?

Aeirion moved his hand with a viper's speed. Fighter's throwing knife, hurled at his crystal foci, clattered harmlessly on the wall. Fighter swung back to Desorn, blocked one kick–then a straight punch at her jaw sent her down. Somehow, she rolled away from the axe kick, kicked up the Ghost's chest, staggered up, wild-eyed. Desorn was winded, but still smiling, and Aeirion had finished his spell.

The Gun-Adept was a _Carromeleg_ master as well. Hotspur had taken telling blows from rifle butt and knee, before cutting through him–but Morgan's Heal spell stopped the blood, and then his katana passed through the elf's body like smoke. Hotspur leapt away as Shavarus' giant shotgun spoke–a couple of pellets hit his leg. The troll thundered forward, grinning; Arai's bullets went through him without effect. The Gun-Adept leapt around a rock to shoot down Hotspur, Morgan was aiming another bolt at Ilsa–

Then a red light, shining through clothes and armour, lit up on all their enemies' bodies. The crystal in Aeirion's hand glowed red–he stared at it, then laughed like madness. The Ghost Gun-Adept was nonplussed for a second. As Hotspur drove his sword through the glowing crystal in his breast pocket, and his heart.

A normal mass-target spell, Ilsa had told them, would have covered Shavarus at the Embarcadero as well as the Ghosts. Either the spell only worked on elves, or there was more than one foci involved. Even she could never have developed a counter within hours, but adding a trifling cosmetic cantrip to the magic coursing from Aeirion's crystal to those carried by his followers…gave them a chance.

Arai's smartlink marked a path to the glow on Morgan's chest. He fired down it as she sent her lightning bolt back at him. The marine sunk down, charred and smoking, as the elf collapsed in spreading blood from her mouth. Mad-eyed, Aeirion was inclined to hurl a torturous curse at Ilsa rather than Healing his XO. Ilsa threw up the Dispel she'd saved to counter Shavarus' mind control. Barely counterspelled the Tir Mage's next attack, as he fizzled her Flamestrike. She knew she had only seconds before either a spell or a touch of mana drain would finish her.

Flesh torn, head filled with concussion, almost semi-conscious against the fastest foe she'd ever met, Fighter chopped down at the glow from Desorm's hip pocket, with a roar like a wounded bear. Still fighting to get inside those sweeping limbs and pummel, still landing a chop on the Ghost's instep that would have hobbled him–her hand passed through, as his foot glanced off her head again.

The Ghost Adept felt a hint of admiration, as he perceived that Fighter was reaching for _zathien_. The fabled suicide attack of _Carromeleg_, accepting death for the sake of victory, was based in a universal warrior ideal. Within moments, his crystal would be smashed and either the Kung Fu girl would be dead, or they would both be. And Morgan was bleeding out. Desorn leapt away from Fighter, to stand between Aeirion and Ilsa.

"I will shield you, sir. While you Heal Morgan, I will deal with–"

Before Aeirion could cast any spell, Fighter had thrown a knife through his head–straight through, but it was a moment's bladed distraction. Without pause, as Ilsa finally managed to Heal herself, Fighter raced towards Shavarus and Hotspur.

Taking a Flamestrike on his Mystic Shield that had still scorched his limbs, Hotspur had charged the troll and finally lunged to smash his crystal. Exposing himself, so that a shotgun butt to the head had brought him down–but before the troll could stamp him out, Fighter was flying in to drive her foot up through Shavarus' throat.

With a groan of rage, the troll surged back at her, as Desorn went for Ilsa. But Hotspur was up again, slashing like lightning at Sharavus' hulking body–as Fighter leapt towards Desorn, forcing him back with kicks. Not only exhaustion but sheer amazement dulled the Ghost's response–that the humans were still upright, _still_ fighting. Aeirion had sunk back into his counterspell wrestling match with Ilsa. Sharavus desperately Healed his own wounds, but Hotspur slashed through him again and again, held up only by the purest rage.

"You cannot kill me!" Shavarus roared, "I am the saviour of metahumanity, I cannot die here!" Hotspur raised his katana for a final blow, "WAIT! If...if you let me go–!"

"_Wineg_ traitor!" Aeirion instantly blasted Shavarus with fire. It was opening enough for Ilsa to finally burn the Mage down, as Hotspur struck the protective crystal from his hand.

With a final third-wind burst of strength, Fighter held Desorn back from his commander's death. Shavarus, barely clinging to life, managed to Heal himself again and rise; but Arai staggered up with him. He stitched three bullets across the troll's chest, finally bringing him down.

-0- 

"If you spare me…I will call back the water spirits. I swear this, by the blood of metahumanity."

Desorn shook his head, as he stabilised Morgan with a medkit. Arai kept his gun trained on the last Ghost. Fighter, Ilsa and Hotspur were barely still on their feet. Takahashi still lay unconscious and bleeding on the bridge. Eyes dull with rage, Hotspur would still have beheaded the prone troll, if Fighter hadn't put a hand on his chest.

"You piece of drek," She whispered at Shavarus, "Aren't you prepared to die for your dreams?"

"I am…not a fool. The destruction of San Francisco should have been a beginning, but without my vision and my purpose, no dawn would come. I will begin again…bring down so-called humanity down by any means, one day, but you must let me live...!"

"How many died?" Sarah cry suddenly echoed over the bridge, "For your grand plan, all you promised us? _Shavarus!_"

Trailing blood, the troll girl had finally crawled down to the basement. Hauled herself upright, ravaged shoulders trembling, and stumped across the bridge toward her former-lover. The bloodied fighters all expected her to fall, Susan shouted at her to be careful, but she did not. Shavarus' smile was strangely gentle but twisted with pain, like a withered desert rose.

"Sarah. My avenging angel. Where so many died and failed, with indomitable strength you have lived! You are worthy of our new world, Sarah. The only woman I ever loved. Now, save me, save our people–!"

"...not strong." The troll girl whispered, "I'm hurt, I'm weak and broken...I never wanted to kill anybody. You never felt for me, you were never kind..." Her gaze passed over Susan, and Harry, with a mixture of regret and resentment, "...but I needed your strength. Your hope. Your _lies._ You fragging, fragging...how could I save you...?"

Tears ran down her wide cheeks. Susan couldn't touch her, but she cried with her.

"DESORN!" Shavarus roared at the Adept desperately, "The human scum are barely alive! You could kill them all–!"

"For a thing like you, I'm disinclined to make the attempt. For my comrades, perhaps–" The Ghost glanced down at Morgan, then turned an acidic gaze on Fighter. "I suspect we will meet again."

With his comrade in his arms, the Ghost darted across the bridge. Arai fired after him, but he vanished into the shadows. They turned back to Shavarus.

"You must Heal me…let me go." His growl was shamelessly fierce, "Then I will call back the spirits…"

"It is a lie!" Arai growled, eyes crazed, "For my men, for Takahashi, no deals with terrorists! _Aku Soku Zan!_ Slay evil immediately!"

"NO! We can still save the city–!"

Arai wasn't listening; his rifle was already at the troll's head. Then Ilsa called his name, and he turned to see her standing over Takahashi with an elf's handgun.

"_Kisama–!_"

_"Ilsa!"_ Susan gasped. Sarah's lips twitched, at the inhumanity of man.

"I suspect this would have been necessary anyway," Ilsa pronounced. "To prevent you from killing all three of us in our present state or calling for backup to arrest and kill us as soon as you could. Step away from the troll, let us leave in safety, and your boyfriend will live, I promise."

"…we fought together! _Shadowrunner_–!"

"_Marino-san?_" Harry managed, trying to staunch his bleeding scalp, "What you're feeling now is what thousands of people will feel from tomorrow, watching their loved ones die–unless we let this fragger live. We're all fragging wrecked…all of us just want to go home to the ones we love."

Torn between humanity and duty, Arai threw his rifle down in tears. Ilsa's gaze barely shifted; she wasn't about to take a chance. Fighter and Hotspur had been ready to heap praises on her–she had held off a Tir Archmage through burns and bullets, she had saved all their lives with her plan–but now they could only turn back to Shavarus. There was very little time left.

Fighter stared down at the troll. Weeks of constant torment, years of pain and killing, all screamed at her to kill the trog. Saving the city seemed an insubstantial thing, beside this hulking villain who'd struck her about as he wished, killed so many others for his madness…yes, he was beaten, pathetic, mad but it wasn't enough. She had to hate him, had to fight and kill the monster…

"…why should we trust you?"

"I would not, in your place."

"Why?" Sarah growled, "Why kill so many people, for nothing?"

"Yeah, why any of this? Your family? Not getting into college–?"

"I could think!" The troll's bloodstained beard shook with the moan, "In this drekheap, troll-hating world, I could not think without hating! I could not hate without acting, without pain! I sometimes wished to be the brute, unthinking trog you think me…but I am what I am. We have no choice, no choice at all…well, then? Are you going to kill me?"

Fighter slowly stepped back. She stared at Sarah, who quickly nodded.

"Give us that fragging Azzie paydata, get out, and call back the spirits. I'll kill you if I see you again…but I hope I never do."

"You will meet with me again," Shavarus hissed, staggering up, "And for all your unforgivable humiliations, I swear I will kill you by inches."

The troll just couldn't stop hating. Susan wondered how much she had ever changed, while Ilsa wondered if she ever could. His oath to metahumanity was kept, however; a rumble came down the creek as the spirit began flowing back to where they had come from. Shavarus was gone, but the datadrive with the paydata was finally in Susan's pocket. She and Harry leaned on each other, hand in hand. Arai stared from them to Takahashi's pale face. Bitterly, but with a trace of hope.

Arai's comm had started working, informing them that the Armoury had finally been surrounded by Marines. The Tir, however, had used a small Zodiac to infiltrate _via_ the the underground creek itself. They floated a mile down a darkened tunnel, found a sewer exit, and finally struggled out into the dawn.


	12. Run Away With Me

_Goodbye cold, goodbye rain_

_Goodbye sorrow, goodbye shame_

_I'm headed out west with my headphones on_

_Boarded a flight with a song in the back of my soul_

_And no one knows…_

_Hello beauty, hello strange_

_Hello wonder, what's your name?_

_I just found out her ghost left town_

_The Queen of California is stepping down, down, down…_

-Queen of California, _John Mayer_

* * *

Within hours of the battle at the Armoury, Renraku and Mitsuhama had descended on the old Aztechnology Pyramid like the sack of a city. Pyramid Holdings' staff frantically wiped computers and burnt files before their ejection by a small army of security. Mesoamerican frescos were scraped away, to be replaced by art-deco or Japanese prints. The Japanacorps announced that the pyramid would be a jointly-owned facility, symbolising the Yamato spirit of feudal discipline and cooperation. As they began their silent struggle for the many sub-companies formerly controlled through Pyramid Holdings.

In Tenochtitlan, the shadowy board of directors for Aztechnology voted to cut their losses in San Francisco. They retained a paper holding company, as a base for their eventual return, but effectively abandoned their remaining assets. They focused instead on using their continent spanning Trid network, and legendary PR machine, to blazon abroad the news of the moment. How four triple-A Megacorps and Saito's Marines had nearly had their prize city blasted from under their feet, by a single mad, magic-wielding troll terrorist.

The Ghosts had recorded all their conversations with Shavarus, audio and video. With no hope of covering up the incident entirely, Tir's spymasters dropped some footage onto the net–editing out any sign that Shavarus hadn't acted alone. If the troll had accused them, they could have simply released the tape of him pleading for his life, and destroyed him. But the prevailing idea was to cut the troll Mage loose, to cause the Japanese occupation further damage and embarrassment.

The Japanacorps insisted that San Francisco was the most lawful, safe and clean out of any city in Calfree, if not North America. As they arranged for Colonel Saito to receive the Military Merit Badge, for his swift and gallant suppression of the late metahuman riots. Saito faced the camera drones with silent dignity, as his troops tore across the whole peninsula, to the thrum of Hind rotorcraft overhead. On seeing the evidence that a trog Mage had not only come close to devastating his city but escaped without trace, he had begun in screaming rage and ended in impotent tears. The Japanacorp directors had reacted more stoically, but with scarcely less rage. The capture and public execution of the trog terrorist was priority one–along with any confederates who had aided his escape.

A week later, a bubbly San Franciscan native and a digital ork dropped a clip of unredacted footage from the Armoury, which a Tir agent had carelessly left on a CalFree intelligence network. High Prince Lugh Surehand himself made a public statement, that Tir's daring special forces had indeed been operating in the Baysprawl, _investigating_ the threat posed by the mad troll Shavarus. Anything that suggested a different story was the result of digital manipulation by unscrupulous shadowrunners, very possibly in the pay of the Japanacorps. It took a prince of elves to sell such a story, but it was generally accepted–an alliance between the insular Tir elves and a trog Mage _was_ rather unbelievable. Not that the rest of North America had any more love or pity for trogs, or San Francisco's metahumans, after hearing of the mass destruction that Shavarus had planned. The metas had been effectively removed from the City to Oakland, or even further afield, within a month, and violence between the Marines and MPA continued without pause. Sarah's part in the Armoury incident, like those of Arai and Takahashi, was barely heard of by anybody.

But the Shadows heard–the story spread out from Calfree like an earthquake–that the wit and grit of a few long-struggling shadowrunners had saved the Baysprawl, while Megacorps and armies stood powerless. The story had international intrigue, a mad, monstrous troll, a marvellous deliverance, epic romance–and video footage. _SeeräuberJenny_, Hotspur and Ilsa Tresckow were the names on every Shadownet thread, heard in every Runner's bar–and they supposedly did _what_ in Seattle, Hong Kong, Berlin and Alpha Base? If a quarter of the stories were true–the Shadows spoke it, in a millions posts and whispers–three undoubtable Prime Runners had joined the ranks of Dodger, Argent and Ghost Who Walks. They would either change the world forever, or be dead within the year.

-0-

The celebrations at club Eclipse went on for three days, though it was the third day before Ilsa Tresckow had recovered sufficiently to limp down to the dance floor. DJ Omphalous had cranked up her most thrumming mixes. Pillars of holographic fire ringing the room. And hundreds of partygoers–Runners and metas, SINless and citizens–cavorted for joy that they and their city were still alive. After the scars of the uprising, with an indefinite future ahead, San Francisco had needed a shameless party to bring it together again. Escaping terrorist destruction was a very welcome spice.

Kali had actually taken up her microphone again. She and Susan were on stage, belting through her own 40's megahit 'The sky's no limit'. Susan certainly couldn't sing without autotune, but she'd loved Kali's songs in her teens, and still knew the words. She'd found her _SeeräuberJenny_ split-jeans and crop top as well. Ilsa hadn't seen her smile like the heart of sunrise for months, as she tossed her ponytail and pumped her fist.

Harry, in the crowd, was practically fighting off would-be groupies with a stick. He didn't look too unhappy, either–thought that was nothing to his grin, unmarred by a trace of shame or fear, when Susan dived off the stage into his arms. He collapsed under her, but they took the chance to hungrily make out on the floor, to uproarious cheers, before getting up for a dance. They were both as battered with wounds as Ilsa, even after express-delivery medkits, so they stuck to a simple slow sway. Gazing from dark eyes to brown, grinning like triumphant idiots, loving each other even more than the crowd loved them. Heroes love like fairytales, love like legends. The crowd believed in it, and so did they.

_"Almost makes you want to meet someone special yourself, don't it just?"_ Anya mused to Ilsa through her PDA, _"Even if I've got Dad, and I had Kenji. You've got your guy…"_

"Yes. I suppose I have."

After the uprising, the People's University had voted to take its program of survival and empowerment education completely online. Physical meetings were too vulnerable to Marine raids and informers; it was a logical decision. Ilsa would have continued her magic classes with the help of a decker. Her boyfriend Henry, however, was staying in Halferville, the dwarf enclave under Caldicott. Dr Henry Chambers had never got on with the Matrix and couldn't stay any longer in a city of disunity. He'd tried for years, but there was no peace or safety, now he just wanted to finish writing his Civil War history in an underground fortress.

He hadn't proposed that Ilsa join in him in Halferville–she could tell he had never expected a brilliant shadowrunner, half his age, to stay with him forever. Ilsa _would_ be moving in with him in Halferville, just to make a point (and to get out of town), but she didn't know for how long she'd be hitting her head on five-foot ceilings.

She had spent months teaching deprived metahumans, and then she'd threatened to kill a man in front of his lover, to save her own life. She'd known she'd never have to pull the trigger, the decision had been correct, no stupid risks…but what would Jo and her parents have thought she was, if they'd seen her? A hero? What had Susan thought? Nietzsche said she shouldn't care, but she did… she needed to talk to Henry, and she needed to think.

"MISS TRESCKOW! This party is like, officially novahot, and _you're_ looking hot, as usual!" Hailey, smile undimmed, sashayed out of the crowd, "What did you, like, eat to get that figure?"

"Red meat, on occasions?" Hailey made a face, "And I think you can call me Ilsa…chummer."

Hailey was wearing a biker jacket, a white minidress and fishnets; she had her fifth glass of synthol in hand and looked a little pink. Ilsa hadn't found anything in her sickroom upstairs to replace her bloodied pantsuit, except a green floor-length gown. Which looked stunning on her, she had to admit.

"I heard Tarne, you know…didn't make it." Hailey smiled sadly, "He _was_ a good guy…it's all such a waste. I think his mother's emigrating to Tir, and so are Voire's parents. Voire got through the uprising and all that…I think he's somewhere in Oakland, still fighting his dumb fight."

"I see. While you will be working for Kali?"

"Oh yeah, but just to pay the bills! She won't mind me, like, sharpening my skills on real shadowruns and stuff! Also, me and Anya found this back door into the Calfree government's network. I want to fill the node with all the evidence we can get of Saito's crimes and awful abuses. Then maybe Sacramento will even withdraw the invitation to the Imperial State, from the '36 wars! Then we can actually start healing–and I want to spend more time with my folks too! They've never really been comfortable with metahumans, you know? We all need to change, not just the big bullies like Saito."

_"Everyone changes but you, girl genius?"_ Anya's voice from the PDA had a smile in it.

Ilsa couldn't personally believe in Hailey's hope-fuelled schemes, or imagine that Anya did. Maybe the digital ork just liked spending time with her, which was hopeful enough in itself.

-0-

"…everything you dreamt of, tiger?"

Susan snuggled all the way up to Harry as 'White Flag' came on for the third time. She'd wanted to drag him off to the nearest cupboard after the first one, through the dizzying heat and human musk. She seemed to feel every muscle in his lean body, and how desperately he wanted her…it was a little frightening, but she wasn't afraid.

"Better." Harry whispered, breathing in his girl's comforting scent of fire and sweat, "We saved the day, kicked out the Azzies…but this must be the one city that throws parties for Runners. And you're the queen of it."

"Well you saved the city, and I really am going to own it!" Kali crowed at them, downing another glass of champagne, "That's what this shindig is for, really. The Japanacorps have always blocked mid-sized business expansion, with the Marines if they had to. Now they're chasing that mad trog all over the countryside, I can use that huge commission I got from the Pyramid Run to buy up land all over! And the level of opportunity at Mitsuhama–the sky's no limit! Finally, Eclipse is going up and up!"

She toasted herself with the empty glass. The triumphant music mogul finally had time to dance and sing–Susan suspected she'd never been so happy for years and wouldn't be for some time to come.

"About huge sums of money–?"

"Oh? We're going to discuss something sordid as payment, before the party's even over? A team of Mission kids are spraying an eight-foot fresco of you both on the side of the Armoury right now, did you know? I've lost count of the tribute songs; rock, rap and metal. That Asian girl right there is home-printing tee-shirts, with the shadow of a ponytail Kung Fu chick."

"Don't I get a tee shirt?" Harry sighed.

"You'd get to bed half the girls here, if you weren't taken." Susan smacked Harry between the shoulders, for good measure, as Kali chattered on, "As for your _nakama_, Ilsa, I think some of her fans are working on an amateur net-film. This is a city of dreamers and artists, and all of them know you saved all of it. There would have been survivors if Hetch Hetchy had fallen, but the city itself would have died. With Saito still stamping down on it, San Francisco needed a victory to go on; it needed a hero. And I suppose it likes having a kick-ass, idol-singer, undefeated Kung Fu girl."

"Well, thanks. But we lost or totalled three or four cars, in about two days of burning medkits…we need the fragging money."

"Well…I hope you weren't planning on retirement. You _were_ due a very substantial sum, but with delays, and all my work to pull your hoops out at the Embarcadero…big-ish, perhaps?"

"Kali, old chummer, old pal…" Susan met Kali's bright, fake smile with a sincere and scary one, "How are _SeeräuberJenny's_ songs downloading right now? We're due a cut of that money, aren't we? I'm sure there's some small print in my contract about running off to save the day without notice–but what would all our fans think, if they found out you'd sent us away with a fistful of nyuyen?"

Kali compressed her lips, but mirth twinkled on the surface of her shark-hard eyes.

"Very well. We'll see about that cut. Chip truth, though? It really doesn't pay to be famous for shadowrunners. Rich and crazy fanboys force you into impossible Black Runs. No one normal will risk the heat to hire you, and you're hiding from endless old enemies with a siren strapped to your head. Saito has you down as Shavarus' stooges, for letting him go. The Tir, the Triads, the MPA, and Shavarus himself, of course, are all gunning for you. Perhaps you could rent a private army, and start on the real bigtime? No one leaves the Shadows, remember? You can't get off this train."

Before the evening ended, a dozen girls told Susan they'd taken up martial arts. A scarred young Runner with haunted eyes exchanged stories with her, and finally said that she was going to keep on fighting. An ork girl said she was going to stay in Oakland and help her people, instead of moving on or giving up. All of them wished her every happiness with Harry, only with a trace of envy–who could possibly be happy, if not the heroes of the hour? But all Susan could think of was the squad of marines, or Triad hitmen, who could burst into the club at any time and cut through all these people to get to her throat.

-0-

"Salutations, my dear ambassador! Yes, we salute, applaud and congratulate you, for your heroic defence of our city from the treason of Shavarus!"

Ilsa actually smiled as she turned to the Emperor Norton, ruler of Calfree and Protector of Aztlan. His uniform looked even more battered by his flight from Colma, but not much more strange or gaudy than some of the younger revellers' costumes. Norton bore himself as assuredly along the edge of the dancefloor as anywhere else at all, observing the technicolour lights and entwining couples with impenetrable benevolence. Ilsa found herself dropping a curtsey, as did Hailey.

"Miss Tresckow." Orion inclined his head. He had come in behind the Emperor, a watchful escort, along with Bertha, the ork huntress from Colma. Somehow, the indomitable ork Adept looked younger than he had.

"Is it _safe_ for you to be here, your majesty?"

"Our dignity is our shield, and all California is our realm! I was advised that our former seat in Colma may not be so auspicious a place for us as another, and so our loyal and worthy friends have made possible our return to San Francisco. The energy and spirit of rebuilding that we sense pleases us greatly! I have promulgated degrees forbidding public disorder and commending tolerant brotherhood already, to a most gratifying response! Saito shall be banished from our lands, never to return, though any of his soldiery who wish to gather under our august banner will be most welcome. I confess that the comforts of the city do, perhaps, befit my dignity and years more than the open field. Madam Kali has offered us a tribute of room and board, in return for a remittance of her Imperial taxes, as long as my destiny permits me to remain here."

Ilsa had a vision of Kali charging the punters 50 nyuyen apiece to shake hands with an Emperor, and selling Norton coffee mugs in the lobby of Eclipse. Still, she saw that Norton was happily acknowledging the warm greetings of a good many San Franciscans. She found herself wondering whether he spoke about a spirit of rebuilding with more than natural insight.

(A shaman contact, to whom Ilsa later described the Emperor, hypothesised possession by a Free Spirit, that had also slipped into the Fifth World to settle on the original Norton. A potent, alien, hopelessly confused intelligence, bent on rule and kingship without understanding anything else in the world? Certainly, it had given the old man far more than it took; his madness kept him sane, as the shaman said)

As Hailey eagerly questioned Norton about what exactly a real-life Emperor _did_, Ilsa caught Orion's eye.

"Again, is it safe for him to be here?"

"Safer than Colma." Orion grated, stoic as ever, "The Marines are scouring the peninsular for Shavarus, Colma crawls with them–but away from Colma, alone and harmless, Norton may end his days in peace. The Marines will leave Colma, and not return–but we will. We will live there again, with families and children, in spite of all that men do."

"We?"

"You know you are addressing the _Castellan of Colma_, Miss Ambassador?" Bertha cut in, grinning tuskily and rolling her eyes, "His Emperorship has appointed this guy to take care of Norton's Army while he's gone."

"Indeed." Orion's mouth twitched; he _did_ look younger, "A self-sustaining metahuman commune will be a most welcome place to finish my book, and a very great deal more. The lessons I hope to learn, and then what we might build together…a path and a guide, which will transform the metahuman slums of Oakland and Redmond into _communities_. United against the world, there is nothing the ork cannot achieve."

"Are you still thinking of militant action? Am I looking at the next Shavarus?"

Bertha spluttered in rage at Ilsa's challenge, but Orion considered it with uncanny calm, even for him.

"I sympathise with Shavarus' aims, but not his methods. To cloak oneself in schemes and conspiracies makes it impossible to convey a message or build a movement. It will be a movement of the people that brings Saito down; fighters, mothers, workers and artists. We must fight, to protect the innocent, but human hegemony will never be overthrown by huge terrorist plots. The ork will not finally overcome by violence, but through love."

"What–? Oh. You mean, orks breed faster than humans."

"Yes." Orion's smile was marred by bitterness, but full and indestructible, "In spite of violence, in spite of disease, or any targeted bioweapon you may resort to–we will find and destroy it–the ork is stronger than man. I bear the majority of humans no ill will, but we will supplant you one day, as surely as humanity replaced the Neanderthal. So, you have nothing more to fear from Norton's Army. We only desire to be left in peace."

"…my boyfriend, Dr Chambers, hoped once that humans and metas could live in peace together."

"A noble sentiment, but a vain one at this time. A time may come…and _time_ is what you have now to work with."

"Frag, things got heavy for a minute there!" Bertha pulled Orion's arm into her thick bosom, "Now, what were you saying about love?"

"I hardly meant…that chapter of my life is past…"

"This is a fragging party, mister." Bertha insisted, "You saved us all when we had to run from our home, and you're the finest guy in this place. Just one drink, and a dance?"

Not a young ork, she was still younger than Orion–but life blazed from her eyes as she pulled the stunned Adept away. Ilsa shook her head, then put her PDA to her ear again.

_"Dad settling down in Colma. How do I feel?"_ Anya gave a metallic sigh, _"If he had a datajack, I could fragging brainwash him…or we could take some time apart, until they scrounge up a wireless receiver so we can talk out there. He's not going to live forever, especially kicking hand grenades about…I need somebody else, and so does he. Hailey talked about some decker friends in the People's University. If we don't tell them I'm AI…make some links, find something to do, like you said."_

"I honestly hope that is possible…I'm sorry, Anya. You sound lonely."

_"Heh. You ever wonder why so many A.I. go crazy?"_

"Are you troubled, Anya?" Orion whispered into the mic hanging from his earpiece, as Bertha got their drinks, "There is no one I want to hold but you, right now…do you know that I will always love you?"

He hadn't heard what she'd told Ilsa, but he'd sensed it. Anya's voice expressed more than anything synthetic should have done.

_"It's alright, Dad. Love you too. I'll always be your girl." _

-0-

Lieutenant Arai had not joined the Marines to get parties thrown in his honour, which was just as well. There was no one else by Takahashi's bedside; the rest of their unit had been killed by the Tir.

(Except for the female marine the Runners had saved; who'd hidden as the few men left in the restaurant were wiped out. Everyone expected her to quit the Marines, but she meant to keep fighting until she died with honour, or went crazy)

There was also a military policeman, stood at ease by the door. After Saito's distrust of magic had been traumatically borne out by the city's near destruction, the colonel had ordered all his own magical assets put under close surveillance, for a start. Arai strongly desired to punch the MP out, but then he would have been in the stockade when his love opened his eyes.

"_….anata_. Did we…?"

"Yes. We protected this city."

"My hero." Takahashi's smile was very pure. Arai bowed his head over the hand he held, "What about the Runners? The trog girl?"

"They took care of themselves. I will take care of you, I swear…I will protect you."

After some discussion, Takahashi said that he wanted to get out of the Marines, in view of his injuries and Saito's new anti-magic policy. Arai hesitated–the Marines had been his life–but he finally decided to leave himself, before they were both arrested for letting Shavarus escape.

"And then, we see the world together?"

"That was why we joined the Marines, _Taka-chan_."

"Oh yes. We saw CalFree...but what does Saito-san see?"

Arai's need to hold his love and kiss his fears away was fierce. Takahashi saw through his hard, samurai eyes to it. He drew in a breath and asked the question.

"_Anata._ After this...can we be together, truly? No more hiding, no more distance, only us, everyday...?"

"_Hai._ Until death do us part."

Arai got down on one knee. The MP thought little of it. Bonds of fellowship between fighting men were highly respected by the Imperial Japanese Marines.

-0-

Back at Eclipse, DJ Omphalous had actually dug out the epically shmaltzy 80's ballad, 'Glory of Love', from _Karate Kid_. Even Susan and Harry had been embarrassed enough to leave the dancefloor, quietly disposing of their drinks. They'd been bought enough synthol to down three trolls, but Susan had always been a fitness freak, never a heavy drinker. Harry would never be one again, and tonight they wanted to savour the pure drug of triumph, together. After some intimate conversation they emerged at the edge of the room, near to Ilsa, Hailey, Orion and Emperor Norton.

Susan threw her arms out to Ilsa; after a moment they embraced without words. She hugged Hailey too; Harry risked giving the young decker a peck on the cheek.

"Miss Lei. Sir Hotspur. We welcome you, in your hour of triumph."

Paternal gladness shone from Norton's eyes, as Susan happily dipped her head. Orion murmured that he'd always known she had it in her.

"Glad you're safe too, your majesty! And Orion, my _shifu_–but what about the dogs?"

"Bummer and Lazarus are reclining in the entryway downstairs, I believe. Living off the fat of the land, as is their habit…" Susan grinned in relief, as Norton rambled on, "…but, more importantly! We must confer titles befitting your dauntless gallantry upon you both! You may kneel."

Looking as solemn as they could, Harry and Susan knelt. Hailey was frantically snapping photos with her PDA.

"By the power invested in us, by Eternal Nature and the will of the great American People, we dub thee Lord and Lady of the Mission. You will be responsible for her peoples' welfare, and you shall share in their triumphs. Now go forth and let all the people praise your names!"

"Your majesty. There was one further, ah, boon, we wanted to ask…" Face burning, Harry threw out the words of his heart, "CanEmperorsdo_weddings_? Like, now?"

"_…was?"_

Ilsa put her hand on her eyes. Hailey–and Anya, watching through the security cams–burst into tears. Still on her knees, Susan threw herself against Harry with a glorious sunrise smile.

"But of course!" Norton barely seemed surprised, "A fitting end to this tale of love and heroics, striving and restoration! I trust that your happiness will be blessed!"

"Ah, do we not a _marriage license_ need...?" Ilsa was even forgetting English grammar in her shock.

"Done! One wedding license, from the City Hall netsite!" Hailey waved her PDA, "Of course, with fake SINs it's not a legal wedding, but, like, it's the _marriage_ that counts…" She collapsed in tears again.

"Susan, are you getting married dressed like _that_?"

"I'll throw on some armour. Soldiers get married in uniform, and could you see me in a dress?"

"Very well then, but where…?"

"For a modest fee, you can use the small licensed chapel upstairs." Kali butted in, "I had it put in for any drunken _sararimen_ who want to get hitched with barmaids. Speaking of hasty decisions, are you both quite sure–?"

Harry and Susan were sure. They had waited and fought, failed and forgiven. Through the shadows they had found their true selves in each other, and all that they'd ever wanted. After years together in the Barrens, after the hard, bloody years apart, they were going on their next adventure together. Defying death itself to ever part them again.

"Well then," Kali wiped her eyes, "_Gambatte Kudasai_, both of you."

Norton (ordained online within five minutes) contrived an unconventional, extensive ceremony out of his own head. Hailey insisted on being a bridesmaid, Ilsa peremptorily refused. Orion stood quietly by, more happy than sad. Harry fidgeted during Norton's longer speeches and feasted on Susan with his eyes. As she squeezed his hand and heard the singing from the dancefloor, from all the people they'd saved.

"Shadowrunners in love." Harry whispered to her, "It was always hopeless. Always perfect. I loved you from the start, Susan, I'm sorry for–"

"Never mind that. Didn't I take too long to get it, that I always loved you? My best friend and my husband…whatever we deserve, we're going to be happy as we fragging well can."

"As you wish, my lady."

Susan laughed in the middle of her own wedding. Harry's eyes shone with fearless life. Their hearts beat harder than any battle, as they shared a sweet kiss. It felt more like their first than their first one had.

Later, in a bedroom with a deadlock, well away from the windows, Susan finally fell against the wall inside the door and Harry fell on her. She pulled off her top, his mouth marked her shaking breasts with fire–

Susan was still afraid. That it might not measure up to her dreams. That she wouldn't measure up to Harry's idolising devotion, or so many other eager, experienced women. She _would_ beat them all, with practise, but she had to be perfect _tonight_…even as the old nightmares still touched her and chilled.

The Halloweeners in Redmond. All that drek with the Agency. Shavarus. She had fought so long, been hurt without mercy–but for her husband, for their love, she would fight for what she wanted so much.

A very little later still...Harry had been more tender and attentive than she could have dreamed of. But it was his passion she had loved first and always, that had conquered every fear or shame in pouring love. As she howled for joy and salvation, as he nuzzled the nape of her neck and wept out her name...

When overmastering pleasure had allowed her to see or think of anything, Susan saw Harry staring at the bloodstain on the carpet. She rested her head on his knees. Reached up and stroked his smooth cheek, as he hung his head.

"Love, I hurt you. Again. Frag, I'm so sorry–"

"Of course it hurt, silly man! My first time." She was crying happy tears, "No one could take it from me. What I'd only ever give to you."

-0-

In a basement somewhere in Oakland, as if Orion's words about building a movement had reached him, Shavarus was haranguing a meeting of metahumans; resist the tyranny of Saito by any imaginable means. By violence, slander, disobedience, sabotage–there was no longer any grand plan, but his oratory whipped exhaustion into a smouldering flame. The troll Mage loomed like a dark stormcloud, seemingly unchanged and eternal. His eyes gleamed with mad lightning.

(Sarah had walked out of Eclipse as soon as she _could_ walk, before Susan had recovered enough strength to stop her, but not to Shavarus. She'd left the message with Kali that she needed to think, train, roam the earth or whatever the frag Adepts did on their own. She roamed as far as a Shadows bar in Oakland, and told a Fixer she'd take any job)

A certain Sam Blankenship, a respected Oakland community leader, had intended to speak for peace at the meeting; where had violence gotten them, against Saito's Marines? However, he had been shot dead outside his soup kitchen the day before. The Marines were blamed by his grieving colleagues, though the finger on the trigger had actually been Lowri Greenwood, the Ghosts' sniper.

As Tir Ghost Rowan tapped away on his cyberdeck, Desorn made a call from the safehouse to the elvish mistress of IJM Colonel Itami. His warning was that Itami had been advocating a conciliatory policy in the Baysprawl, but would be shortly found to have been passing intelligence to Tir and discharged in disgrace.

"…excuse me?" The gorgeous blonde spy huffed, "Dear Yoji _has_ been passing intelligence to Tir, albeit unwittingly–he's my prize source! Do you military types appreciate a long-term espionage network's cost or value at all?"

"We do. The Council of Princes, to whom we report, do also. The long term for Calfree, however, is no longer their concern."

After disconnecting the call, Desorn informed Greenwood that Itami's mistress had gone native, and had to be killed before she revealed to Itami what Desorn had hinted at.

"War, in a year or less. The Land of the Promise will shed its transfiguring light on Calfree, as it will one day cover over the grey, vile world of man."

"What about the Runners?" The Ghost sniper whined, grinning and rocking on her heels, "No one beats the Ghosts and lives to tell tales."

"We must rebuild our presence in the Baysprawl first–but our comrades shall be avenged. We will find them, and we will kill them."

-0-

The day after their wedding, the newlywed Runners were spotted booking into the Bayfront Hilton, for one evening, before a midnight flight to LA. To all appearances, still the happiest couple in the world, with only one thought for the night between them.

Ten minutes later, elite Yellow Lotus assassins kicked in the door of their hotel suite. Sent by Kindly Cheng herself, they had traced Hotspur from Seattle, had thirsted for some really creative violence…and were understandably outraged to find the suite empty.

That was before Captain Mori's IJM special forces squad crashed through the window.

"You're under arrest, criminal scum! _Aku Soku Zan!_"

The lead assassin wanted to ask how the marines could arrest them for an assassination they themselves had aimed to commit, but elected to fling a full-strength Acid Bolt instead.

-0-

"…we've driven Hotspur from Hong Kong, from Seattle, and now from San Francisco. The elf shaman, Glenn Owens, is probably hiding in a Tibetan cave. It is no stain on our honour to call time on the hunt for these shadowrunners."

"The shitbird beat us in Hong Kong, in Seattle, and in fucking San Francisco!" Kindly Cheng hissed through rotten teeth, "We need to mount his head on a tall building, with his stinking tool in his own mouth!"

The Yellow Lotus' Deputy Mountain Master gave Kindly Cheng a look, and she shut up. She was queen of the Heoi floating slum–but the Lotus' real leaders could burn down her kingdom around her ears with a nod.

"Do you know why the Red Dragon Triad has not exterminated us, Madam Cheng, even with Wuxing and the Great Dragon Lung in their corner? Because we would fight tooth and nail, killing more of them than they wish to lose. As we are to the Red Dragons…so these most irritating shadowrunners are to us."

The other Yellow Lotus bosses around the table glanced at the Deputy and decided he would not live to see the new year, after that comment. Tough at the top, at the bottom, in the middle…

The vid-conference screen winked out, and Kindly Cheng turned back to her quiet, unchanging mah-jong parlour. She still didn't dare to curse the bosses, so she cursed Hotspur with remarkable venom and ingenuity. Until her comm chirped.

The message was a photo of Hotspur, grinning like a schoolboy. With his arm around Susan Lei, glancing at the camera as she kissed his cheek.

_Dear Kindly Cheng. We've never met, but you put my man through a lot of drek in Hong Kong. Only, now he's married to me, you're never even going to touch us. When I'm as venerable as you, in about ten thousand years, we'll have about ten thousand children, and he'll still make me the happiest girl in the world each day. You will still be a twisted, alcoholic monster; so miserable, you'd be happier dead. For Douglas, Fyrefox, Owens and Roller–burn in the sixth hell of greed, you foul old witch._

"I'LL SEE YOU THERE!" Cheng howled, flinging her comm against the wall, "I'LL SEE YOU BOTH IN HELL, SHITBIRDS!"

"I'll get on a plane, tonight." Nightjar, her troll minion, squeezed her shoulder gently, "Kill them both, for you."

"…it doesn't matter. Idiots. Just…sing for me, Nightjar?"

-0-

"…so, Ilsa, how's Halferville?"

"There are caverns that make the Kraków salt mine cathedral look like a hole in the ground. Very romantic. The dwarf-sized tunnels, less so."

"If Sarah gets in touch, call me. I'll come running." Susan shifted on her toes, glancing down the shadowed pre-dawn street, "Are you okay?"

"Perhaps. Perhaps I shouldn't be. Henry has been very understanding. He's a good man."

"Ilsa, whatever happens on Runs, or with guys, we're always going to be chummers. Okay?"

"The way you say it, I can just about believe."

Susan smiled as she put her comm away. Before Ilsa they'd called Harry's mother–they'd had to, whatever the risks–to tell her that her only son had saved a city and gotten hitched. She'd been less surprised than joyful. Susan had done the talking; Harry still wore a mildly stunned expression.

"...it's sinking in, I guess, love. I never knew what to say to Mom, back in Redmond...she worked those grim, drekky bar jobs every day, while I was dreaming of shadowruns. I guess we always went our separate ways."

"You both had to be strong on your own; it was Redmond. With her shelter, with what you've done for me, you've both done alright. Tough as loving a shadowrunner is, she's proud of you as I am, Harry, and she knows how you feel without you saying it."

"How did I ever live without you?"

Less than an hour later, they were on the street and ready to run. They had a new Mustang offroad bike from Kali's dealer, a full bank balance at last, and hearts that would never fail. There were marines spreading over the farmlands as well as the city; even when they'd got out of Saito's territory, Tir Taingire would never stop hunting them. Still, they felt like they could live forever if they just kept moving.

"You can really handle motorbikes too?"

"From a Run where we escaped on bikes. Right along the edge of Victoria Peak–"

"Thought it was always rotorcraft." Susan kissed Harry's neck, straddled the bike, locked her arms round his waist, "Where are we going again?"

"Somewhere we've never been. Together."

"Into another fight, I bet. Still, we're Shadowrunners. We can do anything. You were so right about us, Harry Fawkes."

Harry kicked the bike into gear. His eyes were bright, feasting on the road ahead. Susan's ponytail fluttered beneath her helmet, as they roared off into the night. Away from San Francisco, heading East into the valley. Chasing another sunrise.

_She used to meet me on the Eastside_

_In the city where the sun don't set,_

_And every day you know that we'd ride_

_Through the streets in a blue Corvette._

_Baby, you know I just wanna leave tonight_

_We can go anywhere we want_

_Drive down to the coast, jump in the sea_

_Just take my hand and come with me…_

_We can do anything if we put our minds to it_

_Take your whole life, then you put a line through it_

_My love is yours if you're willing to take it_

_Give me your heart 'cause I ain't gonna break it_

_So come away, starting today_

_Start a new life together in a different place_

_We know that love is how all these ideas came to be_

_So come on, run away with me…_

_-_Eastside_, Blanco, Halsey & Khalid_


	13. Trouble in Paradise

_By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking eastward to the sea,_

_There's a Burma girl a-sitting, and I know she thinks of me._

_For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:_

_"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"_

_When the mist was on the rice-fields and the sun was dropping slow,_

_She'd get her little banjo and she'd sing _'Kulla-lo-lo'

_With her arm upon my shoulder and her cheek against my cheek,_

_We used to watch the steamers and the _hathis_ piling teak._

_Elephants a-piling teak,_

_ In the sludgy, squdgy creek,_

_Where the silence hung so heavy you were half-afraid to speak!_

_On the road to Mandalay, where the flying fishes play,_

_An' the dawn comes up like thunder, out of China 'cross the bay!_

_–_Kipling_, Mandalay_

* * *

**Interstate Route 5, Central Valley, Calfree, Feb 2053 (Eight months after the Armoury fight)**

Lying in a rough roadside ditch next to the Five, a half-klick from the barricade set by some third-rate water bandits, was naturally not what Hotspur had expected of the Prime Runner lifestyle. They'd made it to L.A., seen the high life and the lows, but they hadn't seen the hooded elf in the fifth-floor window before she pulled the trigger. They'd slot and run again, Susan and he, as Runners did.

It seemed they'd be running from their enemies forever; or hiding out in this wilderness of empty. But the woman who made a magical adventure of the life they shared was sharing this ditch with him. So close, he could blow strands of hair off her firm brow...

"_Oi!_ Focus!" Susan hissed at him.

"Yeah, I'm focused..."

"_On the job!_ Even with you, I'm not setting down here for the night."

"You could distract those guys with a song and dance? Promise I'd save you."

"Not funny."

"You still love me, though..."

"_Really_ not funny. Good banter and plans take effort, dummy. Everything does."

The wide-open plain of dirt and stubby grass was like a hob under the beating sun. They were scratched, tired and snappy. In their time, they'd closed hundred-thousand nyuyen Runs; beaten megacorps, terrorists and world-class killers. Now they'd stalled in front of a dozen thugs, with rattling AKs and a clear field of fire to the horizon. Because the effort for a fistful of nyuyen, and no hope of something more, was too dispiriting? Or because nightmares, hunting them from Hong Kong to L.A., had finally unthreaded their nerves and bled their hearts out?

Harry hoped it was neither. Desperately hoped that neither fate was on their marriage either, or ever would be. Having no one but each other, as shadowrunning fugitives, was another blessing and another burden. What he could barely imagine he could still dread, because idiocy could frag up forever in a moment…

"How about this?" Susan whispered again, "We tell them straight off we're shadowrunners–"

"Always wanted to do that. It's perfect, angel, just do it."

She met his smile and squeezed his hand. Harry knew in an instant, they would do this when they were old. His wife rose slowly out of the ditch, and walked towards the roadblock of burnt-out vans, hands raised. Hotspur army-crawled along the ditch as her hidden backup, slowing as they drew closer to the bandits.

The bearded men in studded leather and ragged singlets stared at the woman with the endless empty freeway at her back. The Ares milspec vest under her brown Kevlar-weave duster was worn but well cleaned. Her thick braid, with her masterfully balanced posture, added two apparent inches to five foot ten. A broad, tanned face and dark eyes still met the world head on, with a faint smile–but her measured steps were like a panther, utterly aware and unafraid.

"Hoi! Stop there! You a Ranger? One of them…shadowrunners? What the frag do you want?"

She gave a fake street name and told them she had a proposition. Only one ork was dim enough to snigger, and _then_ the danger flashing to her eyes bucked him down. She wasn't recognised; she had a fresh braided hairstyle, no scarf and her new armour pushed her breasts down. When the storied, hunted Fighter was a Chinese girl with a ponytail and boobs, she only needed a few touches for an effective disguise–against guys like this, at least.

"My crew have been escorting water tankers to the farmlands, by highway and river. Hard, boring work, and the Agricorps don't pay us drek. I'm ready to hand over their schedules and security plans for the next three months, cash down."

"Raided a big Agricorp convoy on the Thirty-Two, two weeks ago." A reddish-haired dwarf woman, the bandits' leader, met Susan's gaze, "Where were you then?"

"Maybe with your husband?" Fighter grinned, even as her eyes kept a hint of steel, "Or shaving my legs and wishing I was back in San Francisco."

"_Har_, _har_ and also _har_. I can guess why San Francisco ran you out. And you'd be getting your skull_ burnt_ out, if I wasn't single-o right now."

The dwarf woman had more questions, but it helped that Fighter and Hotspur had actually done a few tedious milk runs for the Agricorps. The bandits obviously didn't have the wherewithal to close a serious deal, so Fighter waited for the demand that she come back to their camp and meet the chief.

Hotspur stood up slowly from the roadside, giving the bandits a fair shock–but Fighter had persuaded him to leave his headband at home and he could be very pleasantly unthreatening when required. The mood in the bandits' pick-up as they roared off was rather chummy. Dorbi, the dwarf woman, was a quick, outspoken mage who was glaringly wasted on cheap thuggery.

-0-

The camp was at the end of a gulch between two rocky hills–Hotspur could imagine they were wary gunslingers in a Western. All that kept the bandits down were the famous California Rangers; Calfree's 'government' in Sacramento was a penniless joke, and the Agricorp bean counters budgeted a bare minimum for regular security. Hotspur could tell that the whole camp might be packed up for a move within hours, however, and that there were caves behind the tents to give shelter from airstrikes. Camo-netting was strung across the gulch, to block spy-drones from spotting the very man that Fighter and Hotspur shook hands with, in front of his tent.

He wasn't exactly 'Kane' Kastle, just the boss of a gang that had somehow scored heavy weapons and plundered a few convoys too many. A shaved-head Chinese-American, with a drooping moustache and bare arms held solidly akimbo. Fighter triggered the locator hidden in her palm, and then took another look at the man stood beside the chief.

Milspec full-body armour was unusual kit for a bandit. From the broadsword at his hip, he could be another adept–but the steel mask, a shadowed grille like an angler fish's jaws, was definitely weird. Fighter noted that Dorbi, still right behind them with her gunmen, was staring at the man with shock and thunderous rage. It seemed they'd barged into another meeting, which the chief had meant to keep quiet from some of his own band.

"Dorbi, greet our new comrade." The bandit chief finally grated, "Boss of the Native Californians, out of Chico–"

"I know who he is…_boss_," The dwarf mage hissed like burning steam, "He's the fragging _Ork Slayer_!"

"Native Californian? You mean, Amindian?" Hotspur gamely tried to head off what he knew was coming. They could see the masked man was powerfully built, but nothing of his bare skin.

"An understandable misconception, Shadowrunner," The voice from the mask was roughly-accented, but strikingly refined and considered in tone, "The red savage has been a viper in the bosom of America–even from before its birth, by and for the true _God-fearing_, native American people, down to the present remorseful day."

"Ah. You're Humanis? Should've guessed from the name."

"_Of course he is fragging Humanis!_" Dorbi screamed. Sparks of magic flew from her waving fists.

"We take a more pragmatic view than our brothers of the Humanis Policlub," Ork Slayer responded calmly, "We are prepared to work with magic-users, and immigrants. Even with stump-legs and tuskers, at a hygienic distance."

It was quiet and buried–but Fighter had never heard such intensity of hatred in any voice. Humanis. The Troll Hunters. They'd killed Anya's boyfriend–they'd killed the trogs who'd beaten and almost raped her. She felt dizzy and sick.

"Dorbi, calm the frag down!" The bandit chief snapped, "This is just a deal! We send the NCs a cut of our plunder; they keep the heavy weapons coming. Think of the future!"

"The future like, next month, you have to cut our throats for your guns? Every meta of us, and _their_ families–" Dorbi gestured at the orks behind her, who were also beginning to look mutinous, "–and you'd do it wouldn't you, _big man_? You slotting coward, I'm taking over this ship right now!"

"You do that, the Native Californians wipe us out!" The chief roared, "Human and meta, within a week! Friends in high places, they're the guys with all the guns, you little witch! We can deal with them and survive, if you just shut up!"

"Or then again," Ork Slayer interjected, "We could all ask the famous Fighter and Hotspur what they're really doing in a cesspit like this?"

As soon as the man had spoken, Fighter had _known_ they were going to get made. Her furious prayers that their backup would swoop in, _now_, had brought nothing, of course–but of course, she'd already charged her limbs with Ki.

The kick shot out from her hip. Her knife hand moved like a wheel–_eyes! Neck! Sternum!_–the three gunmen round her thumped down. Hotspur's sword-hilt shot back into a bearded jaw, then his blade stabbed toward the chief in a diving lunge.

Dorbi launched a Flamestrike at Ork Slayer in the confusion. Who burst it on a Mystic Shield, struck Hotspur down with a pommel strike–and drove his sword through the dwarf mage's throat. He had sliced through the chests of both orks, even before Fighter could scream a curse at him.

Her thrown knife hit the sawn-off drawn by the chief–the blast only caught Hotspur's arm. Gritting his teeth, he still kicked at an AK barrel, slashed his katana through an ankle, and leapt up.

"They were traitors, in league with the Runners." Ork Slayer told the comrades of the metas he'd cut down. "Now, we kill the shadowscum."

There was barely enough confusion, with the crippled bandit thrashing in the dust, for Hotspur and Fighter to bolt for rocky cover. Then multiple AK-97s opened up on Ork Slayer's command. More gunmen were stumbling from caves and tents all round them, more than they'd planned for–many with the armour and milspec Colt rifles of NC heavies. Getting shot to pieces by cheap thugs from every side was a miserable fate for Prime Runners, but the Shadows gave no second chances.

There was no time for a word, or a final clasp of hands, as the sun glared over the hills. No need for anything but a glance, with both their grenades already pin-pulled.

Hotspur darted out left, faster than ever. The Ares HE he'd flung like an outfielder went off, throwing bodies down, as bullets tore the air where he'd been. Body low, he slashed up into the bandits moving to flank their cover. Fighter flung her grenade over the rock, at the assembled firing line; it blew a hole, and then she monkey-leapt across the gulch towards it. Trained foes would have shot her from the sky like a pigeon, but her power threw the bandits back in shock.

She came down on a gunman's neck, chopped and kicked down the ones that had dodged the blast. A few Colt bullets from both sides had cut her limbs–and Ork Slayer was lunging for her, adept-fast like lightning.

She twisted aside, drove Ork Slayer back with a leg sweep. Kicked down a hunting rifle aimed across the gully at her husband–they could watch each other's sixes from opposite sides of a fight, and they'd have been instantly boxed in fighting back to back. Against ranged weapons they had to be a rainstorm– everywhere at once and always moving.

You picked off lone gunmen behind or ahead of the pack, then darted through the ruck where they couldn't shoot without geeking their own. In theory–another ork bandit going at Fighter with an axe was shot down by the NC. Hotspur still charged into another knot of foes, while Ork Slayer thrust through the melee and slashed Fighter's leg.

"_Susan!_"

Hotspur could only slash again at the foes all round him–but Fighter stayed up. She punched at the steel mask. A forearm block tore her knuckles and she barely ducked the thrust at her head. Then the kick aimed at her foreleg...deadly speed, a intensively self-taught style, and a body filled with weapons. He would have been a challenge, like she hadn't faced for months–if they hadn't been surrounded by furious brutes swinging guns, axes, clubs. Closing in on Harry to beat him down, and beat her–

"TARANTA-RA, TARANTA-RA!" A tremendous voice suddenly boomed through the gulch, "THE SEVENTH CAVALRY ARE ON THE SCENE! FLY, MY ANGELS!"

The California Rangers had long found that heavy drone rigging was more useful for keeping the Calfree highways clear than any grasp of subtlety. The four rotor-drones barrelling down the gully with autocannons blazing would have done their intended job without _Ode to Joy_ booming over their speakers. Nearly drowning out the amplified laughter of a very happy troll indeed.

"I LLLLOOO-VE my D–RRRRONES!"

Fighter dived for cover, wincing from her injured leg, as did Hotspur, Ork Slayer, and everyone else in the gully who wasn't quickly cut down from the air. Some of the bandits made it to their boltholes in the hillside and Fighter didn't see Ork Slayer's body among the carnage. Or poor Dorbi's body, strangely–she could only hope the mage had escaped, perhaps to become a bandit queen someday. The water bandit chief was very dead, however, and his band thoroughly broken up. California Ranger Ollendorf, their employer for this alleged milk run, handed over their money on the spot with a hefty bonus.

"I think this'll be a very fair warning not to cause trouble on the old Five!" The troll chortled, smacking Hotspur on the back and nearly pitching him over. His fellow Ranger Ballou, a dwarf in a cowboy hat, merely inclined his head. The Rangers worked as individual mavericks, most of the time–they'd seen the trophies strung up along Ollendorf's section of the Five, from motors or motorists who'd thought they could dodge their highway repair toll.

Actually, it was the biggest Run they'd closed for months. It simply wasn't much next to what they'd known, and in the boonies it didn't get any bigger than this. But they were a little richer, still very much not dead. And heading home together seemed the most precious reward they could hold.

As Susan patched up Harry's arm, and he saw to her thigh, they felt the moments over again when they could have lost forever–and everything, in that moment, they had known of love together. Harry rested his forehead against Susan's brow, under a clear, bright sky, until Ollendorf began imitating little birdies and collapsed with laughter.

"Something you need to get home for, kids?"

"Guess so," Susan stood up, Harry's hand in hers, "Once we've done some shopping, walked the dog…"

They rode with the Rangers back to their van. Little twinges of desire prickling both their arms, as their hands held on all the way.

-0-

They'd spent the first month living out of the van they'd traded their bike for in Sacramento. A covert IJM squad had torn up the city in pursuit of them, they'd heard, but they were already at Lake Tahoe by then, and the Yosemite forests. Crouching under a ledge, or staying in the van, whenever a rotorcraft passed over. Though awakened forest beasts gave them more trouble than any of the many dangerous players they'd brassed off, and the sprawling, lavish glories of nature had blown all the newlyweds' troubles into the lake. Wide as Susan's arms of kindness, sparkling as her armour of courage–Harry would never be a great warrior poet, but he meant every word and Susan adored him.

Moving around was the safest way, until you were spotted; hiding out was the safest way until you were found. Four months ago–after the Ghosts of Tir had slipping in ahead of all the new enemies they'd found in L.A., and sent them running for the hills–they'd started looking for a quiet place. Trying to set up shop or even lie low in another city would have set a fire of whispers through the Shadows, back to Saito, the Tir, the Triads; the MPA and Shavarus' militant brothers. In a small town or even the wilderness they would have stuck out like a troll's sore thumb. Finding work wasn't their thought, right then–after L.A,. Susan's first trip with Docwagon, on top of their nightmares from Hong Kong and San Francisco, they'd just wanted some peace.

Lonely derelict farmhouses or holiday villas, from the days of Californian prosperity, were all squats for bandits or Calfree gypsies. Even if they'd cleared out the bandits, there would have been talk. They'd finally found a lakeside villa with a broken roof, where a gypsy family had been devoured by a ghoul clan. Feral, deformed monsters; twisted by a mutant Krieger strain.

Fighter and Warrior had killed them with satisfaction, buried the gypsies' remains with sorrow. Then geeked the offshoot clan that had crept down from the hills by night, around the house. The Runners had come prepared with IR cameras, alarms and tripwires to defend their home, and darkness held no terrors before an adept's senses. They'd chased the last ghouls down, then set to mending the roof, bleaching blood off the walls and burying what they couldn't save.

More ghouls might come, but Saito and the Tir would always be coming; next year, next week, tomorrow. It was a shunned and feared house, miles from any help, but all they needed was a secret place and each other. They were going to make a loving home on top of a place of death; but they'd both lost count of their dead before they were twenty-one. A happy home was just what they were going to make, against all odds.

-0-

Pup woke Susan up in the morning, licking her bare foot stuck out of the bed. Their quiet black Labrottie-mutt was unquestionably the best treasure they'd taken from L.A. Harry had found her wounded in _El Infierno;_ Susan had nursed her stray as if she'd been waiting for it her whole life. Pup had been their watchdog, fought and scavenged beside them; she was a survivor and a fighter. The warm, silent trust she'd finally bestowed on Susan had stolen the shadowrunner's heart.

Susan and Harry had picked the same name, 'Pup', since she was such a big girl, once again showing off the drekky naming sense they mysteriously shared with Ilsa. When you were one heart and flesh, doing things together was what really mattered.

Susan smiled, as Harry stirred against her naked back. Spent from their Run, they had tumbled into bed. Made love once, with the simple, consuming intensity of exhaustion, then slept. So she wasn't surprised that Harry was already circling her ear with kisses and stroking one finger over her thigh.

"Aw." She whispered, "Is baby hungry this morning?"

"No, mommy's hungry. Hungry for daddy."

"Oh yes, but…morning exercises first. _Proper_ exercise! Ah, Harry, get off, I'm not skipping them this time...!"

Ungrappling herself from her husband's mouth and fingers–barely, before he reached the spots that would've made her a helpless jellyfish in his arms–Susan skipped out of bed. She raised her arms and stretched out in the first stance of her morning Tai Chi. Still wearing nothing, as she faced her husband, except her loosed dark hair and a very big smile.

Harry lay back on the bed, trembling. Eight months, he'd taught her practically everything he knew about sex–and learnt that he'd known nothing at all, before her. Other girls had drawn him, but her love held him like a silk rope. Her eyes were the Shadows themselves, power and adventure. Her muscles moved like chambered missiles of living fire. Under each beloved callus and scar, her skin was pure. Her breasts filled his world, moving like the clouds. Firm like the leg she raised waist-high, to show him everything…

"…you're thinking about something naughty again, aren't you?"

She couldn't help laughing; Harry gave a little moan of desire. She saw his lean body ready to spring like a cat, and of course her man was _very_ ready where it counted. She was tight down there, so big but not huge was perfect. Then her eyes roved up to his smooth chest, over the proud, pitiful scars he'd borne at her side. The cute bad-boy tattoos on his stomach and arm; his soft cheeks under childhood scrapes. Bright eyes that had been made for this, their happy ever after, that made her a queen and gave her all his heroic love.

"Just watch me, Harry, for five minutes. Train your willpower. Or you could play with yourself…show me how much you want me… but just five minutes, then take me. No messing about, because I know exactly how you feel."

Harry did have iron willpower, when he wanted to use it. He lasted for barely three minutes of Susan's drifting, willow-strong limbs and rising, falling breasts. Until she turned her back and dropped into a hip stretch against the bedroom wall, perhaps with a lot more hoop-wiggle than needed.

-0-

Their cries of passion faded to echoes, beneath thick, fast panting as they lay spent. Stretched out on the floor, linked by their squeezing fingers, silly with each other's love. Susan presently mustered the strength to get up and feed the dog.

Apart from a few whines, Pup had shown remarkable patience; noisy dogs didn't last very long in _El Infierno_. Susan rewarded her with pettings, a hug and a full apology, before putting her out in the walled back yard. Then crawling back into bed next to Harry, for a lazy morning with a few more rounds of canoodling. Gentle rounds, since afterglow was giving way to soreness.

Shagging like wild animals was for when you were both still alive after a Run–Harry gave amazing foot massages as well. Sometimes he would slowly work up her ankle, with stress-slaying fingers. Up her thigh with kisses and tightening circles, that tightened her with lust. Worshiping her biceps, playing with her breasts very gently, as she breathed and burnt. Feeling her heartbeat, as his chest hammered against her hand…meditating on a beloved body and soul for an hour, before Harry even touched her with his tongue. It was another fruit of their adept training–apart from Olympic bodies, limitless endurance, and the sensation heightening powers they were both hopelessly hooked on–that had made them very happy bunnies. Ancient Tibetan masters, and less-ancient California Hippies, had pursued tantric sexual perfection as a path to enlightenment–but for Susan and Harry, Nirvana could wait.

There was little else to do in the evenings, they were somewhat in love, and Susan was determined to be better at sex than Harry, someday. She'd taken sex on with the same bold, physical passion as martial arts, and a fierce competitive spirit, as if she had something to prove. Or something to run from. But she snuggled against Harry's chest, as he ran lips and fingers through her loose black hair. Here and now, so happy together.

An hour later Susan finally got up; she went to the back courtyard for a bucket shower of cold lakewater. Her soaked, bare flesh shivered in the shade, but she still lingered on the rough grass, naked and warm in the sunlight. Pup gave her a resigned, forgiving look as she scratched behind floppy ears.

Susan hugged herself under her heavy breasts, became aware of her own body. The monsters its strength had killed, the lives it had saved. The pleasure her body and indomitable heart gave to her husband and herself, every day.

The terrors that had torn at her heart to tear her down…in the small hours of the night, they still came. But today they were impotent as far black clouds in her clear sky. A warm glory rose in her, until she could have roared out her joy to the risen sun.

-0-

Dressed in her leggings and a baggy shirt, Susan went through her serious morning Tai Chi in the yard. Harry joined her for push-ups, step-ups, sit-ups; he laid down 100 overhead _men_ cuts with his katana, while Susan punched and kicked into an old mattress hanging from a tree. Conscious technique and forged muscle memory equalled mastery.

Their happy home did have damp-browned, peeling walls in every room, and a roof that leaked buckets in the rain. After a breakfast of nutrisoy, Harry spent the rest of the morning aloft with a toolbox. His knowledge of roofing was zero, but it gave him another thing to do. He would have slotted a skillchip, if he'd had a chipslot, rather than master an unglamorous skill through hard trial and error. Until Susan had shared her opinion that real men worked with their hands for their families.

Susan cleaned the house as best she could. It still smelt a bit like a locker room, with all their training and sex–but that was better than the faint smell of blood. She ambled round near the house with Pup, checking their alarm tripwires and cameras. Smart as their doggo was, grenade booby traps were out of the question. Then she checked their food and equipment, planning their next supply run to a nearby settlement–a different place from last month. Then it was time to tie her apron round her waist, tie back her hair under her yellow scarf, and whip up some stir fry for their lunch.

She'd always done the cooking for her father, and Harry had left cooking to his old girlfriends, when they'd cooked at all instead of going Nuke-a-Burger. It wasn't her talent, but she was better at it than all of them; she found it relaxing and fun. She'd always been eager to take care of her body with proper food, moreover, as far as a SINless Barrens girl in the age of Stuffer Shack could. Even in Redmond she hadn't only lived off ready meals, and natural veg was what she liked best about living in the country with some money.

The kitchen did also have many happy memories lingering on or under the table, perched on the counter, bent over the sink…the time she had just pounced onto Harry's chest as he stood firm. Wrapped her feet round the arch of his legs like a vine on a tree; she'd clung to his shoulders, he'd gripped both her thighs. Soaring up between Heaven and Earth, until they were nowhere and nothing but_ close_. Two halves, forever, who might have found each other and held, across worlds of parting darkness…

Susan glanced up at the roof, stirring the pan. Smiled to think of Harry thinking of her.

-0-

They chatted through lunch with some animation about how nothing whatever had happened during the morning, glancing shyly away from each other's smiles. Then they spent the afternoon training each other in wall-running and sparring, taking breaks to play with Pup. Adept techniques and martial arts were their life–the hold on life that adepts had to centre like their breathing to survive the Shadows.

Maybe it was the only way of living they could imagine. Maybe they knew in their hearts that the Tir, Saito's Marines, the Azzies–or even Lofwyr himself–would find them one day. Burn their home to the ground, send them running for a more distant wilderness…but they would have to stand and fight in the end.

It was just like their training in Redmond, with a hundred stories to tell each other instead of a million dreams. Their affinity hadn't changed, whatever else had, and having so much to teach each other was glorious.

Everything Susan had learnt from Orion and the Agency. Everything Harry had learnt from Master Po and his Hong Kong crew; Ki techniques, driving skills, safehouse security, even basic wilderness survival. In Redmond, Susan had taught Harry Kung Fu, and rescued him from fights. She'd known before, her boy had finally grown up–but when he actually taught her to drive the van, set up the cameras and tripwires that guarded their home, and noticed little habits in her Kung Fu she'd never have caught herself…she felt so proud of her man she was ready to swoon into his arms.

Though now she was kicking off a wall as they sparred, dropping her forearm toward Harry's jaw–he dodged back, she'd known he would. She came down with a reverse side kick, that he caught. Pushed her down to the grass. She sprang back up, flicked his fist away, unleashed a storm of knife-hand blows that slapped rhythmically on Harry's blocks, between them.

"Susan! You okay?"

"If it's a fight, I've got to be okay!"

She forced her breathing back under control. Met Harry's grin. They spun around each other, across the grass, like dancers in perfect sync. Until Susan's aimed a turning kick to stop one inch from Harry's stomach and missed by an inch.

"Frag! Love, are you okay? Frag, I'm so stupid–!"

"…it's okay. I'm okay. In combat, you can't hold back…and I can't win 'em all. You did great."

Harry sat on a bench, holding his stomach; Susan sat beside him, leaning in.

"Sorry, love. Want me to rub it better?"

"You didn't kick me _there_…let's just take five, angel? I need to get over this wall."

Barrens girls didn't go for flowers and chocolates. Susan's perfect man wasn't just a dreamer and a hero; he had the skills and the heart she could trust with her life. They didn't need an L.A. nightclub, either–the dance of sparring was what made Susan's blood pound and pinned down her heart with two brown eyes. Much as she wanted to end yet another of their bouts with a passionate open-air romp, she contented herself with a snuggle and sweet kiss.

They both had a wall to scale themselves or fall on. They'd faced the Ghosts of Tir, twice. Deadly magic, the unseen bullets striking them down, and undefeated close-combat power. They'd known they shouldn't have lived, and would never survive a third engagement, unless they got far stronger than years of training had made them. When you hit the wall, however, it was impossible to know when effort would equal true improvement–or if you were as strong as you'd ever get.

"That Native Californian mob…" Harry had been thinking of yet another enemy, "…they're getting their kit from Saito, I guess? Ollendorf talked about them poisoning metahumans' farmland, setting bombs, raiding homesteads. No ork gangs out here; why the frag would anyone do that stuff?"

"Maybe the reason Sarah joined up with Shavarus," (_Where was she now?_) "Maybe the same thing that happened to me…"

"But you never took that path, angel. Not Humanis. Maybe you could get through to some of them, like with Sarah?"

"What, invite them round for a chat?"

"_Raids_, remember? If they find us here, they could invite themselves. They're smart enough to have pirate radio and Matrix broadcasts…if we end up taking the fight to them, we could call up Anya? See if she still wants revenge?"

"Or maybe we could _not go looking for trouble_, just once? We could stay here and live free for a while, Harry, like Calfree Gypsies."

"…hey, tell me again about that Run on Aztechnology, with Anya? The one with blood mages and cannibals?"

"I told you half a dozen times, love. Focus on now. Us."

Harry was silent, as Susan got him some water. Stories like old, beloved songs could be told a hundred times with laughter. But there were Runs with his old, dead crew, and nightmares Susan had lived through, that they could still never talk about. They could still hold each other–but it was the dreams unfulfilled that went bad and might poison everything.

-0-

Their first time, their wedding night, had been unprotected. They'd both wanted it so much, they hadn't got it together–and Harry had used protection with girls he'd never wanted to spend his life with. He'd pulled out and made a mess on her hoop, but Susan knew that _wasn't_ contraception, and she wasn't really happy with it.

It had been hard to tell Harry that their wedding night had not been perfect, but it might as well have spoilt everything if she'd held back. He'd been bitterly ashamed, which was almost worse than a row, but Susan had gone on the pill and they'd moved on, as lovers must. If there had been an unplanned baby, though, everything they were could have gone to drek.

Harry didn't want to be a dad, couldn't imagine it. They'd agreed that they could never take another shadowrun, setting their lives on a cast of dice and fleeing from city to city, if there were a child between them that could lose mother and father. Even Susan didn't like the thought of her weapon-svelte body becoming a pregnant lump.

But she thought about kids. A baby for her and Harry to make together and love together. A child who might grow to anything in the world…even in a world as drekky as this. She wanted a child almost exactly as fiercely as she _didn't_ want a child, which was a bit of a strain. It matched her ambiguity about returning to real shadowruns…and in a bad, merciless world, there was no going back from any choice.

There was still a silence between them, as they took Pup for a walk in the evening. With bare valley all the way to the hills, daylight walks held the risk they would be spotted. Pup whined up at first Susan, then Harry, sensing something wrong.

The sunset was a towering red city above the empty plain; a city without crime, poverty or death. Silence was heavy and complete beneath the sound of Pup's breath, as she ran to fetch a ball. With a happy vigor that seemed endless, and put a smile on both their faces. Susan scratched Pup's neck as she slipped Harry's hand into hers.

Their love at the end of the day seemed to have the leisurely tenderness of reconciliation. They took very mindful care of each other's pleasure, and simply adored, until they were filled with one warmth and lovingly exhausted.

"Baby, you're the best in the world." Harry whispered, stroking the small of her back as she lounged on his chest in bed, "We could take the Renraku Arcology for everything in it. Just like we said we would, back then. Our anniversary, maybe…?"

"They still haven't finished it, dummy. And Seattle's full of Tir agents."

"Club Underworld 93. Maria Mercurial starts off all her world tours there; it's the joint where all the novahot Runners hang their holster. You've never seen Maria M. live, angel. Wouldn't that be worth the risk? Wouldn't it be legendary?"

"Harry, we're legends already. We saved a city, somehow we survived…isn't what we have enough?"

"You're twenty-three, Susan. This can't be it. We should be making contacts at the top of megacorps, sitting down with the biggest Shadow-players. Some mad cult could be planning to drop Seattle into hell, any day, and _we could be the ones to stop them_. The world should see us, princess, me and you. How you shine through the Shadows…and didn't you want to save women from the gangs and syndicates? Love, you could do it!"

"_Harry_…you took on the gangs, the Triads, for _me_. I love you so, so much…but _it didn't work_." Susan's voice was like a sob, and very faint, "The Yellow Lotus, the Halloweeners…they're all still there. I feel it, I know I'm a phoney hero…but it's not a game, Harry. What I did to take down Shavarus, I will never do again. We really could die the next time, nothing could change that, and _I don't want to lose you_."

"We could die if they find us here, Susan. No one leaves the Shadows. Frag, frag, I'm sorry, babe! How can you even think you're weak, or–?"

Susan rolled over, away from Harry. He nuzzled her neck and stroked her arm, fruitlessly, until he fell asleep against her back.

Susan knew Harry would never turn back from her to other women–but the Shadows would never loose their hold on his heart and she didn't like it. Her man couldn't live without the thrill of adventure–so she'd pushed beyond her limits to make their sex life a great adventure, quite happily. When the roof was mended, though, when they ran out of skills to share…when all her body and heart could give just wasn't enough, for the Runner who still dreamt at the top of the world…?

Happy ever after was hard to keep. Of course he frustrated her, but she just couldn't hate him. She would sooner have hated herself, for wavering between two paths and living on a cloud of bliss. While girls like her, and Sarah, lived and died under the foot of evil. She'd saved that poor elvish girl in Redmond, saved some others, but what had she really ever done except kill? It was hard to think, years later, past midnight, why so many of them had died. The years in Seattle and the Agency, when she hadn't imagined any life but shadowrunning, seemed more like a dream that the dream she was living.

She wasn't only afraid of death, or losing Harry, which were the same thing. Memories still haunted her; two weeks at Shavarus' mercy, defeat, torture and shame. She fled from them every day to Harry's arms, round after round of Ki-heightened sex, and wasn't that better than all the pain and loss she'd known? But where were discipline and meditation, purity of spirit? Holding on to pleasant things would only ever bring suffering, to her and others, but she could not let go.

Maybe that meant the nightmares had beaten her. Maybe that perfect Kung Fu heroine couldn't take it any more. Maybe she would never truly fight again.

Were their life and love nothing, filling time? She didn't know any life but fighting…but she could teach people to fight. Maybe Harry's crazy faith that she could make Humanis thugs see sense was his one good idea of the day…

Then her commlink lit up, on the nightstand. She saw Ilsa Tresckow's name through the darkness.

_Precisely when needed._


	14. Highs and Lows (Side Story)

_A/N: Kat Berg is probably from the 2070s, but I wanted to include her anyway. Canonically, there isn't a Krieger strain anti-virus, but in the Shadowrun PC game getting hit with infection doesn't change you into a ghoul, and ghouls would be ridiculously dangerous if it did. My fanon anti-virus only works within a few hours after infection (before the transformation), doesn't always work, and is not readily available to the SINless slummers and bottom 90% among whom the Krieger strain proliferates._

* * *

_Sunset Boulevard, jackpot boulevard,_

_Getting here is only the beginning._

_Sunset Boulevard, brutal boulevard,_

_Once you've won you have to go on winning._

_-Sunset Boulevard_

**Downtown, Greater Los Angeles, seven months earlier.**

A sprawling grey toybox city, glittering in the dusk between the hills and the sea. The towers of Arcology Mile faced the high walls of the _El Infierno_ ghetto. Susan looked back towards Tinseltown. Harry leant on her back and his arm held her.

"Harry, love, tell me again how you thought it was for Prime Runners? Saving the world every week, partying in L.A. …?"

"…mixing with the stars, the CEOs and power players, me and my superhero girl. You'd be the hottest star in heaven or Hollywood. We'd show them what it means to be alive, because we _are_."

"Alive, for as long as we hide in the Shadows …but it's enough just hearing you talk about the bright lights. Now, get off me and get in character, or these guys will think we're a couple of lovebirds."

In fact, their contacts had heard all about the heroes of San Francisco and weren't surprised to find them visibly in love. The deference of the first-year L.A. Runners was rather awkward–sometimes getting famous felt as stiff as going straight.

"Boss?" One ork asked Hotspur (They seemed wary of speaking to Fighter), "Chip truth, New Line are optioning a movie about you, right now?"

Harry tried not to look completely stunned as they set off.

Soldier and Jabali were both orks and _El Infierno_ natives. Their fixer, Kali's friend in L.A., had procured the team a pass for the walls. However, with drifts of rad-sludge from the wave of '45 still choking miles of street, running machine-gun battles with toxic spirits, and a different gang lording over each cinderblock housing project, Fighter and Hotspur wouldn't have lasted a minute in the megaslum without guides.

_El Infierno_ was three cities worth of the poor and SINless, ringed with concrete and turret guns. Filled with the smog of burning trash, rising up to the shiny, speeding autos on the Downtown-Carson flyover. Rubble and broken walls like a bombed-out town. Dark, stunted children peering from the filthy doors and steps–half of them metas and nine-tenths of them black or Hispanic.

Hotspur saw a light in every fifth broken window, however, and each street had a patrol of guards. For Redmond there was no power but what the mob stole for their Touristville bars. No law but street gang protection money. Though these uniformed guards had the tattoos and swagger of gangers–the more things changed…?

"Corps lay on power, water, basic medical," Soldier answered him, "They get a nest of guinea pigs for testing drugs and face cream–I got these scars when I was a kid. Corps arm the gangs to keep it all in line, gangs keep the _locos_ out of the safe zones. Gangs are the real power here. The best of them ain't so bad, so long as you keep buying their drugs and selling them your kids."

"And there ain't no war on." Jabali added, "Still, you're Redmond grads?"

"…the Puyallup rad-zones are worse than Redmond." Fighter's face was a hard mask, avoiding the eyes from the street, "Children starving or killed in drive-bys is terrible anywhere."

"Redmond doesn't have a wall," Hotspur glared up at the miles of razorwire, "Caging humans like they're animals is the worst kind of evil."

"…could be, boss." Jabali failed to sound convinced.

"Wall came down tomorrow?" Soldier went on, "Beverley and Hollywood would drown in blood. There was the rising of '23. The Battle of '46, when those Sacramento fraggers sent in death squads, then kicked the whole sprawl out of Calfree when they couldn't kill us all. You could only un-frag this city by dropping it into the sea, and not even then."

"We've got a job to do," Fighter's clear voice brought them all together, "Let's save an innocent kid, get out of here and get paid."

"Yeah." Hotspur tore his eyes from a scarred teenage streetwalker, looked ahead, "Let's be heroes."

Soldier and Jabali grunted agreement and re-checked their guns. There were as many dreamers in the ghetto as in Hollywood, though it crushed dreams far quicker; getting paid, getting out and being heroes was what they were ready to kill for.

There was a slow circles-of-hell progress through the streets, as Soldier and Jabali checked ahead for shifts in territory and dickered with gangers over tolls. Fighter felt the eyes behind them, and the guns in the windows. There was one street gang the L.A. Runners didn't recognize, loud and aggressive. Hotspur had to step up and tell them calmly to find another street, hand on his sword. From their manner and loose formation, he could tell the gang had formed last week and would be chewed up by the bigger fish before Friday.

_La Muerte_ were another matter. Former shadowrunners, survivors of the Battle of '46 against the Calfree Guard, a gang who brought real medicine and food into their block of _El Infierno_. By snatching rich SINers slumming it up in San Bernardino. Saving a sixteen-year old girl from kidnappers was the Run Harry and Susan had both dreamt of since they were twelve. The reality was a little different–few pro L.A. Runners would have taken the job–but it was still a Run, and it paid.

Soldier's prayer to his Dog totem found them a sewer route into the derelict shopping mall. Jabali's hand-cobbled drone disabled the shock trap. Fighter and Hotspur couldn't have taken four veteran Runners and six young guns together; hacking through room by room was still one of their tougher fights. Surprise and stun grenades counted for much; the flamethrower on Jabali's drone did damage, even when it exploded.

The walls of the hideout shook. Brick, wood and filth puffed out from the striking bullets. Bodies hit the floor. The _La Muerte_ boss had been more machine than ork since '46; his steel fangs and buzzsaw arm were still first-gen cyber, dark-age vicious. The rest was Alphaware, and Fighter knew his skill should have torn her apart. Except that he was old and tired; she was young and on fire.

She snatched her foot from a grasping claw, flicked it back out at his head. Spinning away from the buzzsaw, twisting a low back-kick into the rear knee, then knife hands into the side and brow, punches to the head until the blood ran.

The ork cursed her as a pawn of Hollywood with his last breath, but Fighter had a righteous cause as well. Snatching a keycard, she hauled open the security door at the back. Dropped to her knees before the blonde human girl chained to the wall.

"Are you hurt? Did they hurt you?"

"Ugh…no. They talked like they would. And my dress is ruined, I've missed three parties and Yvonne's eighteenth, I was so, so…those filthy _animals_!"

Susan held her shaking hands, told her she was safe. Her hair and both their hands were covered in dirt, like everything this side of the wall.

Jabali had other concerns; a masked _La Muerte_ had put four bullets in Soldier before Hotspur could cut the elf down. Then the sword-adept had darted away to geek an enemy mage, as Jabali shrugged off dumpshock and tried to save his chummer with a medkit.

The last two kidnappers had hauled hoop. Before pursuing, Hotspur had darted back and snapped a Docwagon transmitter on Soldier's wrist.

"Ach…can't pay you back, boss."

"Null sweat; one Runner to another. Frag it, we couldn't have done this without you."

"Frag that, you're _Hotspur_! You beat the Tir Ghosts, you took on the Yellow Lotus Triad and lived…!"

"HARRY! You okay?"

"…yeah."

Susan had _felt_ that Harry wasn't okay. His chummers had died fighting the Lotus, but all the Shadows remembered was his valiant attempt–his heap of drek. Even poor Douglas had told him he'd tried, and clung to that drek with her last breaths, while the glory Harry had longed all his life for went rotten from within. He stared across the gloomy lair at Susan, as if at his light.

"Fragging great Run." Soldier chuckled, delirious, "Ach…just like a Trideo! Next time…hire a decker gang, film our Runs, build up our rep that way, _Hermanos_! This is Hollywood, understand …?"

The ork coughed blood and fell unconscious. Hotspur rose to make sure the enemies who'd fled were really out of the picture. Jabali stayed by his chummer.

-0-

Beverley Hills seemed to be full of Shadowrunners; armoured jackets and spiky hair were in fashion. Women in softer clothes, clopping along white sidewalks, seemed to favour tacky, broad-brimmed hats and big sunglasses–after dark? Susan and Harry hadn't seen so many live trees and flowers as lined the streets since their honeymoon by Lake Tahoe. Whatever pollution-resistant gene-mods the city had laid on seemed to work.

"They're pretending to be _incognito_ Trid stars; it's the latest trend," Their new fixer, Kat Berg, explained about the hats, "Most of them aren't anyone special, just filthy rich."

It amused Harry; Susan had given him a whole lecture to the effect that a disguise shouldn't look like one. With their appearances mildly altered, they had moved steadily from crowded streets to alleys without cameras, to reach the back room of a particularly famous L.A. nightclub. There was a celebrity jazz quartet onstage, and limousines parked bumper-to-bumper out the front, but there were also enough news snoops and camera phones that it would have been suicidal for them to join the party. They really were in hiding; no players in L.A. were looking to kill them yet, but the networks of Saito, Tir Taingire and Aztechnology had a long reach. They should never have been in a AAA security zone, even for a meet–but they'd wanted to see Tinseltown, for the sake of childhood dreams.

By contrast, Katyana Burgeshova, star of the world-famous Trid show _Blackstone_, had moved through the club like a barbarian queen. Exchanging whooped greetings and fist-bump with the rich and cultured, before retiring to the private room for an ostensible chat with investors. She was possibly the most beautiful woman Susan had ever seen, never mind the most beautiful ork. Nearly two meters of Amazonian limbs and silk evening gown, with jewels strung over her arms and kanji carvings ringing her tusks. As well as the throat augments for perfect pitch and power that all A-list starlets got, dental work had freed her voice from the distinctive orkish growl. Fighter knew both Anya and Orion disliked 'tusk jobs', as they despised the miserable orks or elves who let a Renraku clinic 'humanise' them with surgery. She doubted either of them could have turned Kat Berg aside from her choices, however. Kali had her faults, but she had some useful friends.

Harry tilted his glass to Kat Berg across the table, smiling with 'here's-looking-at-you' urbanity. Susan didn't know whether to smack her or him, even if she was a Hollywood megastar. Actually, that made it worse; fame and glory had been Harry's light in the Shadows for a long time. And maybe it really made her racist, but seeing her husband give looks like that to an _ork_ woman stabbed deep.

"Miss Bergeshova." Harry smiled, again, "It was a surprise to us, seeing our first shadowrun in L.A. all over the news sites and rumours of our involvement all over the shadownet. We thought the girl's family would want her ordeal kept quiet, and we're trying to lie very low ourselves right now."

"So you came to L.A., of all cities?" With a megawatt grin, Kat shook her head, "It really wasn't to set the town on fire, like Hong Kong and San Francisco, before you ride off to the next city like cowboys and Indians? Anyway, sorry about the rumours, but the girl wants to go into movies. She's milking her rescue by two famous shadowrunners for the publicity–I would've done the same. Do you know, one of my girlfriends wanted you to stage her abduction by _La Meurtes_, complete with heroic escape, to help her break into action trids?"

"You remember we're _shadowrunners_?" Susan fought to keep her voice light, "Our world is death and life, not…trid show drek."

"And yet I hear they're talking Penny Wong and Donaldo Diamanté for your movie, maybe in two, three years? I've got friends queuing up who'd pay you solid nyuyen just to swing by their parties and show what mixers they are. People with Knight Errant on speed dial, who could protect you from your enemies–a bit of safety and comfort? Maybe star in that movie yourselves one day?"

"Hmm, sounds better than _El Infierno_–but, chip truth? Just another cage."

Kat smiled at Harry's riposte; Susan didn't smile.

"Okay, just testing you a little. You should know, the father of the girl you saved is business partner to one of _Blackstone's_ key producers, and also a significant donor to Mothers of Metahumans." Another brilliant flash of fangs, "You've truly made the future a better place."

"We saved a girl. We didn't do it for your policlub, or your Trid show."

"Is that so?" Kat inclined towards Susan like a lioness playing with her cub; powerful, but calm, "MOM lobbies against discrimination and racist violence at every level of government. We give low-interest loans to meta-run businesses; we set up slum clinics and shelters for metahumans, staffed by metahumans."

"And _Blackstone_? Do orks even watch it? Nikki Blackstone, rich goblinized heiress in her manor, moaning about prejudice? The orks we know live on the streets; they're gangers, dockers, shadowrunners or janitors."

"And this never bothered you? It bothered me. I meant for Blackstone to be a painful show, because turning the world upside down takes pain, effort and nyuyen. Blackstone tells orks and trolls they can be whoever they want–frag that Orksploitation ganger rap drek!–and MOM gives them all they need to do it. Even the criminals from El Infierno can rise, like Soldier and Jabali. Like a poor Russian ork girl who loved Hollywood movies–like a couple of street adepts from the Redmond Barrens. More to the point, I've pledged MOM half my salary from _Blackstone's_ third season. Millions of nyuyen, for a future worth living in."

"You just need enough to keep yourself in diamonds?" Through her rage, Susan felt Harry staring–this was _really_ no way to talk to their fixer, "And it was you who convinced the newssites that _La Meurtes_ was sending their nyuyen to Humanis terrorists, not poor slummers?"

"Sometimes the truth isn't enough, to marginalise an international hate-cult. The lies of Humanis are a millstone on the neck of every innocent ork alive. Why shouldn't we say they had a rich white human kidnapped for money, if that's what it takes?"

As MOM spokeswoman on the world stage, and serious power in the Shadows for the good of metahumanity, Kat Berg was palpably capable of whatever it took. Even as Susan found it very hard to even speak.

"…_yeah_, it's just, for my first year, every ork and troll in Seattle thought that being–_beaten_–by a troll had made me a Humanis trog-killer!"

Fast as ever, Harry gripped Susan's hand under the table with both of his. She saw Kat Berg instantly fallen out of his world, and squeezed back with love under her eyelashes. The Hollywood fixer gave the Runners their moment, before she dropped the truth on them.

"_Used to_? My girl, you spent your first year killing ork gangers. You killed metahuman protestors in 'Frisco, before you took down a troll terrorist. You're on the MPA's deathlist, and you're Humanis Policlub's favourite female shadowrunner. It's not your fault–no one who'd met you would ever say you're a tortured soul, driven into the Shadows to kill the trogs that raped you. But that is what half the rest of America thinks, and when your movie comes out, _that will be the story of you_. Let's just say that more humans than orks will be getting tickets."

Susan clung to Harry's hand. Shot him a glance to say, _she had this_, but it took her a moment, again.

"I…hated orks for the longest time. Their gangs, their manners, even their faces…long before I was assaulted, even before I wanted to be a shadowrunner. I didn't deserve it, no one does–but my _Shifu_, my chummers Anya, Sarah, Sandra, all of them who smacked some sense into me–they deserve the truth more than I do."

"_No_, babe, you beat all that drek!" Harry whispered, "I messed up, I never deserved a fragging thing, but you were always you…!" Harry glanced back at Kat, and recovered himself with a tremendous effort.

"You're not a bad kid." The Hollywood fixer pronounced, "Heroes are meant to reassure, and bishie hetro white boys do that for a lot of folk. As for you, Fighter–have you ever considered that not all heroes Kung-Fu trolls to death? Have you thought about standing up and telling your story?"

"I told you, I'm a shadowrunner. I couldn't…I don't talk, I act! I'm not a story for the trids, a soundbite, some _celebrity spokeswoman_, I'm just me!"

"No, you're a great deal more than that. You have a public image, and you can leave it for Hollywood and Humanis to play with, or you can send a message to young orks who think all humans are the enemy. To slum kids thinking of joining Humanis for the sake of 'our women', and to all women who've lived through what you have._ SeerauberJenny_ tried to do it, but you didn't go deep enough, and it went to drek in the end. The world doesn't need a singer, or a token ork in Hollywood, or Hollywood heroes running from city to city. It needs us to take a stand, work by the rules for years, and build something that matters–a cause that can truly change the world. If you take the right path, Fighter, I truly believe you could be a real hero."

Susan stared from Kat Berg to Harry. Her eyes were bewildered, almost pleading. Before the world-spanning force of Kat's conviction, knowing that what she said was right–telling the shames of her past to the world was something she could not do.

There had been interviews in her _SeerauberJenny_ days; she had hinted, evaded, tried, but never said what the world did not want to hear. And was her story so simple that she could just spill it in fifteen minutes to a Trideo interviewer? She was more than assault, racism and even shadowrunning; she had fought through three years to believe that.

"Since this discussion is getting a bit personal," Harry hadn't let go of Susan's hand, "Can I ask if you were ever married, Miss Berg?"

"Never was." Kat smiled brilliantly as ever, "Guess I never found an ork who measured up to the cause."

"You'll understand if we spend some time lying low, together? Some time to think about what kind of work we want to do in future?"

"Of course." Kat's handshake was firm, of course, "Sorry, I got a bit carried away there. You have an opportunity right now, while you're still in public eye, and I feel quite strongly about some matters. There's plenty of regular Shadow work in L.A., if you want to go back to plain old datasteals and extractions."

Slipping out the back of the club, Susan and Harry turned to each other.

"I'm sorry–"

"I'm sorry–!"

"Next time, you do the talking–"

"I was an idiot."

Susan burst out laughing and linked her arm with Harry's.

"Come on, _Donaldo Diamante_. Let's have a novahot party for two back at the safehouse."

-0-

They had a small apartment in San Bernardino, the Renton to _El Infierno's_ Redmond Barrens–a dangerous slum, but not a hellhole. They'd actually left San Francisco with a lot of nyuyen; they'd been married just two months, and they were in L.A. Still lightly disguised, Susan and Harry toured Universal Studios, laughing at the action Trids. They saw Shield Wall at the Hollywood Bowl, and the Los Angeles Bolts onscreen at the coliseum. After three years of death, Harry was less of an Urban Brawl fan than he'd been–but it was still a gentleman's game compared to a bad night in Redmond, and maybe a lighter substitute for the true combat rush. Chinatown was out, but they did meander across the sprawl to Fun City, the former Orange County.

The whole district had been bought out by Amalgamated Studios and converted into a theme park–even residential blocks were decked out as castles. At Virtual Disneyworld, they walked through the lightshows, robot pirates and holographic dragons. They made the teacups spin too fast, and found a quiet closet in the haunted mansion for some gentle adult fun. Whenever Susan looked over the crowds of chattering families and helplessly wept because she couldn't believe it was real, Harry rubbed her back and waited. He bought her a plastic Mulan sword and Minnie ears. She leant on his shoulder in the tunnel of love.

Between various themed attractions, Fun City was an All-American homage to the once-great nation. White picket fences, white timber houses, wide grid-patterned streets with the old Stars and Stripes on every corner. The other tourists weren't completely homogenous, but it still didn't take Susan long to notice that all the animatronic models and period-costumed staff had a common metatype and race. She raised an eyebrow at Harry.

"Is this supposed to be…?"

"…_whitey-town_? Nothing I recognise. I guess there weren't any metas in the 20th century, and American humans were all white…? No, you told me Chinese people came over hundreds of years ago, and there _must_ have been Amindians…maybe they all lived out in tents? I don't know, we could ask Ilsa?"

There were a few buck-toothed robotic Chinese railroad workers in Wild West Land, which Harry had been looking forward to. It turned out Amindians did live in tents, where they mainly seemed to get drunk and high on peyote. No Hispanics, and no black people until Plantation Land. They got a nauseous feeling at that point and moved rapidly on from the twang of banjos to Fantasy Kingdom. Where they finally saw some orks, both robotic and living, roaring about like cartoon monkeys until the human heroes wiped them out. The elves' forest village was more of the same. Orion had mentioned to Susan that Professor Tolkien had a great deal to answer for, but she wondered if people weren't just people. They'd seen worse, but they weren't sorry to head home.

Of course, famous places meant cameras; they did their best to be another couple of tourists in baseball caps, shades and shorts. Whatever they did, unless they'd holed up in a cellar, they knew they'd have to run sooner or later.

-0-

Actually, shacking up in a cellar would have had its attractions. Susan couldn't resist asking Ilsa, during their weekly Net chat (less traceable than a comm call, through the right sites) whether too much mind-blowing sex could seriously drive you crazy.

_"…all these sexy adept techniques. We're literally having magic sex. I'm a spirit of lightning and earthquakes, bursting out of my flesh to meet him in the universe–and I've still got so much to learn! I love feeling his strength and care, I think he could make me do anything for him. I told him my out hole's off-limits, but, chip truth? He could charm me into giving him my hoop or anything, and he doesn't. He loves and respects me, and I love him, I LOVE HIM SO MUCH! Seriously, do you think I'm going crazy? Magic is magic, and flesh is just flesh." _

_"And you're a lovestruck _dummkopf_, but don't worry. Sex magic has its victims–there was a tenured professor at Heidelberg whom the female students were warned to avoid. Sex potions are controlled substances, for all the good that does. Spells and adept techniques, however, normally avoid the dangers of a button wired to the pleasure centre, a tab of Jazz or a BTL chip. Reaching the heights offered by magic requires proportionate skill and effort."_

_"Oh, that's true. Never tell H. this, but I actually get why all those girls fall for him. I'm sure some men have as many women, and they're still drek in bed. I know too many Redmond boys think being a man is just power; hitting women, and even worse. But my idiot husband got this idea, somehow, that making women happy makes him a man. I'm his woman, and he tries so hard for me…he always tried. That's his love, that's what makes him so good!"_

_"Pleasure can be about power, as well as love, but power can be put to good use. For example, I will research a spell to smack your head from the other end of the country, unless you stop bragging about your husband."_

_"Sorry! Wiz, you must have some sex spells you spice things up with?"_

_"I experimented lightly at university–but sex that lasts for hours is perhaps worth less than a man you might spend your life with. Much can be done with a couple of added hands; simple telekenesis."_

_"I can imagine. Actually, I could use them. I still can't ever manage to take control in bed; that honestly is frustrating. He always just overwhelms me, but I want to do the same for him, or I'll feel useless…it feels like him making love to me, when I want us making love to each other."_

_"My heart bleeds for you. Why not simply tie him to the bed?"_

_"Wiz! Dare I ask?"_

_"It's a bit of a fantasy, but Henry wasn't comfortable with it. I didn't mind. Our sex life is quite satisfactory, thank you."_

Satisfactory would never have satisfied Susan, with all the stress that loving a shadowrunner brought–and she'd never known Ilsa to be satisfied with it either. She was still thinking faintly about it an hour later, looking up at the bedroom ceiling and clasping Harry's hands around her breasts.

They she sighed, screamed and wept, as her husband's tongue circled and stroked. She poured rainbow slicks over his cheeks and arched up her back, until climax like L.A. earthquakes threw her down. Overwhelmed, helpless, weak in his arms–and love made it feel like heaven. Crazy love…

"Susan?" Harry pulled himself up over her, earnest and eager "Babe, was it good?"

"...frag did it _sound_ like, stud? You're the best, Harry. Always."

"Then I need to be better for you. Frag, you're so beautiful…"

".. no...ah! No, you need to let me blow your mind sometimes! Like you always do for me…Harry, listen! Get off me a minute."

Harry's hand froze on her breast. He drew back, quenched. It had been his joy to treat Susan like his princess, ever since their first night, but she still felt him holding back. Still afraid that he could hurt her…she needed to do something about that. Shadowrunners and marriages survived by nipping small problems in the bud.

After their first shadowrun as husband and wife, she'd bought a bottle of cheap champagne and offered to pour it over her breasts and stomach in the bathtub, for Harry to lap up. He'd gone stone cold and completely silent. Tying the knot was supposed to have drawn a line for them both, but it had hurt. He didn't want to do things with his wife that she was sure he'd enjoyed with loose women in Hong Kong.

_"It sounds like a fairly mild Madonna-Whore Dichotomy."_ Ilsa had told her, _"Associating love with purity and female sexuality with corruption, based on his past experiences. Try to talk to honestly about what you both want." _

They were silent for a minute, both afraid to speak. Then Susan asked Harry if he could get dressed and give her five minutes in the bathroom.

Five minutes. He whispered her name.

"Harry." Her voice, through the bathroom door, "Save me, please."

He slammed the door open. Susan was crouched on the floor, still bare and faintly shaking. Her right foot was tied with rope to an exposed pipe.

"Work with me, Harry. Just listen. The gangers that captured me are in the next room–"

"No, they aren't; I already killed them. Susan, frag's sake, are you–?"

"Now you're here, tiger. I'm okay. I'm shaking…but you saved me. You're my hero, and this is the only way I can show you how I feel..."

Harry stood still; Susan gripped his belt, pulled him in. He had seen her beaten down by gangers in blood and terror. Drunk and guilty in Hong Kong, he had betrayed her, never saved her. He'd dreamt of saving Susan Lei, the woman who'd ruled his world since they'd been kids in Redmond. Save her, hold her completely, be her world. Her hero. Worthy.

Now all of that meant nothing, except for Susan, his wife, here and now. The strongest woman; bound, on her knees. Facing her fear with weakness, trust and joy, for him–telling Harry again, he could not possibly hurt her. This was what she wanted. This was right.

His hands drifted from her shoulders to Susan's long dark hair, guiding her gently. Her tongue tasted his head, her lips slid down his shaft. His fingers stroked in her scalp and his mouth hung open. His grip shook, as he moved her hand to join her suckling, vigorous mouth, and begged her.

It took a bit longer than Susan had expected and tasted a lot worse. Harry started moving in her mouth towards the end, but quickly realised she hated that and stopped. Sex in bondage, even with Harry, did come with fear; but she didn't stop. Her first blow job left her man clinging to her on his knees, wearing a silly, helpless grin.

"Was it really that good, love?"

"Susan, you've been bossing me since we were kids. You're the strongest, you could take me down with just your thumb...but you went down for me. I always wanted it, love...was it okay, are you alright? You're the best, angel, I fragging love you, the best...!"

"I get it. Thanks. Looks like I got the best of you," She spread and sunk her fingers into the muscles on his chest, smiling, "Nice we can both get what we want."

What Harry wanted next was both Susan's arms tied to the pipe. She consented to try for him, but it held too much nightmare. As soon as he'd tied the knot and stood up, she very nearly screamed out the safe word; NO.

Harry instantly pulled the knot loose. Freed her. Susan instantly shoved him flat on the bathroom floor. Squatted down with her feet planted either side, and hammered out the most fierce, brilliant, life-and-death sex with her husband they'd ever had.

She howled with passion, from her muscled, rippling stomach. Her limbs shook with power and pleasure. She leant in, whipped her black ponytail through the air as joy gripped her, and even shook her breasts above Harry's worshipping eyes. She wanted to give him a show, while he filled her body with joy, though his pleasure already seemed to be more than his head could hold.

Harry writhed down to his toes. Panted, clung to Susan's planted feet, and urged her on through a barrage of orgasm. She screamed Harry's name, clawed at his chest, and spent every atom of her strength staying upright on top of him. Until he spurted every drop left in his _cojones _up through her strong, shining body.

"Ah Harry…don't be afraid. You couldn't ever really hurt me." She whispered, resting on her man in hot, sticky bliss, "If I'm strong, I'm going to be strong for you in bed."

"I was terrified of getting a really embarrassing injury, love…and it was still _incredible_. Frag, I'd better get used to being a beautiful Amazon's plaything."

"Oh yeah. Only your amazon needs a lot more practise going down on you, stud, if that's okay? Nothing we both want can be wrong, Harry. You're my man, and I'm fragging proud of all of you."

-0-

Not quite a month after arrival, Hotspur did accept a free invitation to the one kind of celebrity event in L.A. with no cameras. The host was a senior producer at Amalgamated Studios, with his name attached to some of the biggest Trids of the last decade. Two other producers, a studio executive, three Trid actors and a casting director completed the party. Some of them had bought wives or mistresses; Fighter had not been invited. Merely getting married–a small thing in this modern age–had done little to dispel Hotspur's old reputation, however.

Circulating round the penthouse apartment, Hotspur pleasantly told stories of minor Runs and Hong Kong brothels. He'd entered with a cry of 'Nobody move, this is a shadowrun!', which had set the party at a roar. Real whiskey was flowing freely, and the novacoke came out within the first hour. A few couples and one threesome had got started on the evening's real activity rather too early.

Hotspur had managed to drink as little as possible when the host called for attention. The Hollywood set sprawled back on the plush silver couches and looked over the four women that entered the room, like wolves in a meat market.

They _appeared_ to be–Maria Mercurial, silver-limbed and unmistakable. Amanda 'Euphoria' Lockhart, simsense actress. Christy Day, teenage singing star, and Kat Berg, in the costume of her first major role as a teenage ork streetwalker.

The Hollywood ripperdoc's surgery had left hardly a trace on them, but the slightly fixed expressions and reflexive eyes screamed personafix chip in Hotspur's face. _Bunraku_. The original women had been brought or taken out of _El Infierno_, naturally, to be bound and transformed, mind and body, for as many of the Hollywood elite as wished to enjoy them.

"Ready?" Harry whispered into the mic under his collar.

"Born ready, tiger." Susan whispered, outside the door.

Fighter had already dealt with the building's security, cracking skulls and tearing out wires. Now she finally kicked the door open, took in the scene, and punched out the first man as he fumbled for his panic button.

With phones and Net cut off, panic buttons were the only danger. Fighter and Hotspur only needed their fists, half of the guests were too drunk or high to do anything. One of them _still_ put the distress call through to Knight Errant before Hotspur could sink a knife-hand in his throat.

The_ bunrakus_ naturally went with the shadowrunners when told to–but two of them were shot down by the KE patrol in the lobby, not having been programmed to seek cover from gunfire.

Fighter pushed the ork woman down, knowing the deaths were on them, but still leaping from the stairway through the bullets. Charging, punching, killing, in the moments they had before the Knights called for backup and everything really went to drek. Hotspur cut through the squad at her side and drove the van as they sped away. Fighter, in the back, searched the eyes of the bunraku women.

"Hi, I'm Kat! How old would you like me to be?"

Some terror had seeped in during the flight, to mildly scramble 'Kat's' behavioural tree. She automatically responded as Susan embraced her, sobbing.

"We'll get them help, love. It's okay!" Harry called back to her, slowing the white van as they reached a main street. He could hear sirens–but distant enough that they could still switch vans and escape.

Going off rez, after all this time–making their own Run, over their fixer's head–felt like an L.A. earth tremor had dropped them back to their year one. Susan knew already, the two they hadn't saved would stay to swell their nightmares. As her choice to kill that fragging producer with a straight punch would always linger–should she have killed them all, even the helpless drunks, like so many trafficking gangers? She would never know any more of the two girls she'd rescued than blank eyes and programmed reactions–but saving even these two was something she wouldn't regret.

Boys in Redmond thought power made them men; running with a gang, dealing drugs, abusing women. Harry had somehow got the idea that protecting women made him a man, when he'd always been her man, always _tried_–she loved that in him. But the _bunraku_ had been stolen and twisted by twisted men, who didn't just loathe metahumans and women, but any sign of their strength. At the top of the world, they still couldn't be happy until they'd degraded innocent people and boasted to their friends about it. Striking a blow at them–couldn't Prime Runners do anything?–had seemed such a good idea at the time.

-0-

"So. Another chapter in your legend?" Kat Berg, the real ork this time, regarded Fighter and Hotspur with a mixture of faint amusement and stern rage, "You had to rescue _bunraku_, who really can't be saved, from the last people in town you should have ticked off. You could have hit a brothel in _El Infierno_ and saved a dozen girls, if you'd got out alive, but you just had to make a scene, frag everything up."

"I think you know why he had to frag things up, Miss Berg," Harry answered deliberately, "You were right that L.A. isn't somewhere we'd want to settle down."

"Do you think I was ever ignorant, of the _bunraku_ parties, the sex abuse and racism? I've always lived in this town. Those perverts play golf with _Blackstone's_ producers, their friends send nyuyen to MOM that saves every ork and troll in America. Sometimes I've had to laugh along, pretend not to see, for the sake of building something worthy of my place. And you threw that path away for–two girls?"

"We understand your work saves more people than we ever could–you're our heroine, just about–but there are some things only cowboys can do. I had the invitation in hand; we didn't involve anyone else. Even if we could never fix what was done to those women–Susan knew you could save them and believed you would."

"Bold thing to ask of your fixer. Of course, you fools switched off their personafixes?"

"Reality is better than a lie. We knocked them out to stop them hurting themselves," Fighter remembered the ork woman's dislocated, horrified eyes–her body transformed, her will stolen and her family lost. She shut her eyes for a moment, then forged on. "You know one of them was altered to look like you, Miss Berg?"

"…that fragging producer. He couldn't even cope with one ork in Hollywood." Kat shook her beautiful head, clasped her claws together, and spoke carefully, "You know…the first big role I got there was a rape scene? I had nightmares for months, I was in therapy for a year, even as _Blackstone_ was taking shape, and I couldn't stop climbing to the top of Hollywood…chip truth. But I don't know what you've lived through either, Susan Lei, and the same goes for this poor ork girl you saved.

"I'll make sure both the women you saved are safe; they'll have the years of help they'll most likely need, to live as themselves again. But I'm afraid I won't be working with you again; there's no rulebook at our level, and personal differences get more people killed than ever. Get out of L.A., and you might just outlive the month."

-0-

Leaving L.A. proved harder to do than say. Leaving openly would have been too great a risk; the best smuggling routes were controlled by the Mafia, who were hand-in-glove with the Hollywood elite. Susan and Harry were still trying to find a route they could trust when the first hit squad attacked their safehouse.

They geeked those gunmen together, without ever finding out who they'd been sent by, but staying ahead of the killers was what kept you alive in the Shadows. However good you were, one bullet was all it took.

They retreated to the one place in the sprawl where Knight Errant, the Mafia and any other enemy would think twice about following; _El Infierno_, the most dangerous place in Calfree. Harry poured out to Susan that he'd been a reckless fool–nothing had changed since their first shadowrun, and he'd finally gotten them both killed.

"Harry, we cut through a whole KE squad with hardly a scratch, and we saved two women who no one else could've saved. We were both idiots, but we'll deal with it together–don't you dare ever give up on yourself, Harry Fawkes."

He'd still brooded, which had made her furious. It had been a week that shook their foundation, when a careless word could have toppled them into oblivion–but if their bond broke they would both die, and punishing the one you loved for your own idiocy was just stupid. They fought together, stayed together; after a week they finally came together to love their guilt away.

Their luck finally came in, though the unpromising happenstance of a major Krieger strain outbreak in_ El Infierno's_ Compton district. In a time of relative peace, the gangs would have chewed the Runners up–but with hordes of flesh-eating monsters roaming the streets, they accepted the help their city needed. A number of unemployed Runners were already gathering for the bounty money, though nothing like anti-virus was ever sent by the city or megacorps.

Fighter and Hotspur found a squat on the edge of Compton; they boarded it up, and dug in. Over the next month they killed a lot of ghouls. They met many more _El Infierno_ people, good, bad and ugly, most of whom finished up eaten alive, or losing their minds to HMHVV. The pain and futility wore Fighter's resolve down to a nub, but Harry always held her spirit up.

"The gangs only care about their turf, the corpers don't care at all. But we're defending the people here from monsters." His face was dirty and grim, but his eyes were bright, "Even if no one remembers, we've got a chance to make a difference here."

"Yeah. A chance."

When Harry found the stray dog sprawled behind a rubbish heap–starving, bleeding from her haunches, lapping oily water from a puddle–he knew he had to call Susan over. She'd fought for the life of every sick and wounded chummer she could, wept when they'd died, and kept fighting. Also, she'd had a heart for dogs for as long as he'd known her. Even in a drekheap in Remond, she'd said, a dog could be happy and should be.

The dog growled and snapped at Susan, as she knelt with one of their valuable medkits. She told her, _No_, and pushed down her neck from behind. The dog still struggled, but too weakly to stop herself being treated.

"…can dogs get HMHVV?" Harry asked.

"Bit late there." Susan squeezed his hand, gazing at their new chummer, "Also, don't care. Hey, would you shoot me, if I started to turn?"

"Hmm, getting eaten by a beautiful woman sounds okay…"

"Not happening, idiot. Families stay together."

Harry felt Susan's heart in her voice. Shadowrunning meant parting from friends and burning through chummers; it had always got to her. But she'd hold on to _family_, no matter what; even legendary lovebirds needed somebody else.

Susan stayed up with their new chummer all night, and the next day, singing gently to her as she growled–it was more like taming a wild animal. Finally, Pup would lick Susan's hand instead of bite it, and push a shoulder against her chest for a hug. As if determined to be useful, she showed herself an alert watchdog and expert scavenger. She could hold her own against a single ghoul, but Susan felt much happier when her chummer was running ahead of some shamblers, drawing them off from the horde.

Ghouls were too tough to easily kill with guns–they'd seen too many gangers try and fail. Ghoul super-senses forestalled ambushes and charging into a pack would've been the worst idea. It fell out that Susan spent more time fleeing down dark, filthy alleys than 'some horror trid bimbo'. Pausing to back-kick through one ghoul that had surged too far ahead, or fling a knife, before racing on. If they made sure to avoid blocked streets, until they'd whittled the pack down, and not repeat the frag-up when they'd run into a second pack, it worked like perilous clockwork. Better than dodging inventive assassins from every side–better than watching the carnage from on high like the rest of L.A.

Soldier and Jabali helped Hotspur and Fighter get settled into their old 'hood, but quickly made a pile of their earnings and set off for Seattle. The Ork Underground held out a land of milk and honey to them both. Soldier explained their idea that Running briefly with Prime Runners would build up their rep and skills, while hanging round Fighter and Hotspur too long would surely get both the orks geeked.

"You're going all the way, chummers. See you– and thank you." Harry embraced them both, and clasped hands; Susan shook their hands warmly, "Anything we can do? Everything chill with you and Kat Berg?"

"Since we helped you? Nah, that woman knows when to turn a blind eye. Chillest chica who ever lived. You know she's sending medkits and Kreiger anti-virus into the ghetto, on the down low? If it came out that she was working with street gangs to do it–nothing gets done in _El Infierno_ without the gangs–her name would be mud in this town."

-0-

A month into the outbreak, most of the other shadowrunners or ghoul hunters had gone down or got out. Central Compton was still ghoul city; the faded, ravenous shamblers seemed endless. Susan and Harry were talking about getting out themselves, when rumour drew a certain blonde-haired street-sam in milspec armour to the door of their squat.

Susan shocked herself as much as Harry by throwing her arms around the man, before introducing her husband to David 'Paladin' Steiner, former Knight Errant.

"…then, you _really_ became a vampire hunter?"

"I had to make an honest living." His smile was pure and easy, "While making the world a safer place."

"Sounds chill." Harry grated, "Tasing my wife back in the day was part of that?"

"_Harry!_ Be nice." After Susan had made sure of this, she offered Paladin a chair in the snugly squalorous living room of their barricaded home. Pup growled until Susan shushed her–she wasn't very good with strangers yet.

Since arresting Susan in London–and more importantly, arresting and falling for Ilsa in Berlin–Paladin had worked briefly in Europe before heading to America, seeking more monsters to slay. Vampire hunting, compared to shadowrunning, was more dangerous, bleakly unglamorous and underpaid. A month of geeking ghouls had been enough for Fighter and Hotspur–but they understood why Paladin looked happier in his work than he had as a cop.

"Hunted any ghouls that weren't monsters?" Harry asked, casually, "You know, thinking ones?"

"Intelligent creatures may still be monsters, as I'm sure you know–particularly when compelled to eat human flesh. Some of them wish to die. I work case-by-case."

"Ilsa's doing well…"

Harry glanced at Susan's sidelong, incredibly unsubtle smile, and burst out coughing.

"I am glad of that." Paladin's smile was like a wisp of fog over a stone, "She…is a beautiful, burdened soul on a treacherous path. I'd almost hoped she would be here with you. I certainly wouldn't like to think of her being alone."

Paladin, Susan quickly found out, was alone. Ilsa had bluntly turned down his marriage proposal nearly a year ago, he hadn't contacted her since then. As far as Susan could tell he was waiting, without hope. Some of it was his religion, or his honour, but she knew what love had made him give for Ilsa. She felt like running all the way to Halferville and hauling her chummer all the way back.

What Paladin spoke about, however, was his idea that a vampire, or several vampires, were laired in the heart of ghoul city. Disseminating the Krieger strain, controlling ghouls even more easily than they enthralled metahumans. If they turned the whole of _El Infierno _into their hunting ground–so long as the Megacorps could test their face cream on slummers before they were eaten–the outside world would just see one more hellish ghetto.

"I'm putting a team together. When I heard you were both on the scene, it seemed like the will of God. The bounty payments, even on top of a payment from the gangs, isn't so much compared to risks–but if you're ready to join the heroes…?"

"Born ready, choirboy." Harry stuck his hand out, "Let's make this hellhole a little safer, and some blood-suckers truely dead."

Paladin shook hands with Harry and Susan. Arranged to meet them the next day, and scratched Pup behind the ears before he left.

-0-

"Frag, I can see why Ilsa fell for that guy." Susan smiled at Harry, who wasn't smiling.

"Think I can see why she dropped him. Too good for his own good."

"Harry, you're not…?"

"Frag yeah, I'm jealous," Harry looked at her shamelessly, "I'm shaking here, I can't help it. I need you that much, baby."

Susan squeezed both his hands, gave him a deep, hot kiss, then disentangled herself to feed Pup before bedtime. Harry watched her hips move across the room with an adept's grace. A trace of sunset light through the boards on the window touched her, as she smiled at him over her shoulder.

Then the bullet punched between the boards, down the shaft of light, through her chest. Harry dropped to the floor as she dropped, under the paths of two more bullets. He crawled to her, Fichetti trembling in his hand.

Though the black mist of horror, he knew who shot like that. Cops, assassins and Mafia wouldn't set foot in _El Infierno_–but there was nowhere the Ghosts of Tir could not reach. Lowri Greenwood's ecstatic, predatory grin swam before his eyes. Desorm's faint smile, as the cloaked, silent figures surrounded the door of their home. _Her face_, it should have been full of strength, it was pale and chilled…

Pup growled in his ear, then bit it. Harry finally seized control as he pushed the dog down, then dragged Susan to the nearest medkit. Her docwagon bracelet was going off, her blood was flooding over the floor, but she was not dead, she could not be…there were shots outside. The moaning of ghouls. He was looking at the end, the price of all his reckless, idiot drek, _three fragging months_…fragged if he'd pay up yet. Fragged if his Susan would ever die.

Acid sizzled through the lock on the door. The first elf stepped through with a silenced rifle. There was a stun grenade stored with the medkits; Harry hugged the wall and made ready to throw it hard.

-0-

"It seems two of our elite SOS team were killed outright with headshots, while retrieving your wife. Ironic, isn't it? And since she appears to have the Platinum rather than _Super-Platinum_ contract, I'm afraid you're liable for the cost of their replacement. There is a substantial extra fee for rotorcraft retrievals from _El Infierno_, of course. And it's fortunate you were shot to pieces yourself, or else riding out in the same rotorcraft would have voided both your contracts. Furthermore, the _animal _you insisted on retrieving was very irregular indeed. In layman's terms, expensive."

"Is she okay? _Will she be_ okay_?_"

"Of course, this is Docwagon. The Platinum contract includes infallible life support, a vat-aged clone for tissue replacements and an electronic mind-map for reversing the serious brain damage, at least. It would be less trouble to give you the clone, but your wife will be up and about in a fortnight; you should be out of bed tomorrow. This is a maximum-security facility for our Platinum customers; if you wish to extend your stay here beyond your own treatment…"

"_Expensive_, I get it. Frag off, will you?"

The doctor trundled away. Harry winced as he shifted in the bed. They would have to get out of L.A. in two weeks time, whatever it cost. They'd left San Francisco with a small fortune from the Pyramid Run, and they'd been working ever since, but it looked like it was all going up in smoke. Two weeks would be enough time to snap up at least one solo Run; penury in the Shadows was dangerous.

But better than what _should_ have happened, if Paladin hadn't dodged the Ghosts that had descended on him, as he'd left. He'd deliberately drawn a horde of ghouls into the mix, by firing an unsilenced gun. The Ghosts had pulled back as the ghouls swarmed in, and Harry had no idea if Paladin had made it. He was sure all the Ghosts had survived, except the one he'd geeked. Survived to snipe through the darkness at him, and the SOS team, as they were mowing down ghouls to get Susan on the rotorcraft.

It had been a bloody mess, and their future only held more of the same. Paladin, if still not geeked, would have to save _El Infierno_ from the vampire coven himself. It would be his story, his quest. While Harry slot and ran, into Shadows without heroes or purpose.

He'd lived through a lot. Him and Susan, both. Frag, even_ Pup_ had lived through a lot. Did that mean there was something big they had to do? That was what Kat Berg had told them; that was what he'd believed when he was a kid. All he knew he had to do now was to go to Susan and hold her. Never let go of her again.


	15. The Last Call pt1

_East and west and south and north, the messengers ride fast_

_And tower and town and cottage have heard the trumpet's blast._

_Shame on the false Etruscan who lingers in his home_

_When Porsena of Clusium is on the march for Rome!_

_The horsemen and the footmen are pouring in amain_

_From many a stately marketplace, from many a fruitful plain_

_From many a lonely hamlet, which, hid by beech and pine_

_Like an eagle's nest hangs on the crest of purple Apennine._

_The harvests of Arretium, this year, old men shall reap;_

_This year, young boys in Umbro, shall plunge the struggling sheep;_

_And in the vats of Luna, this year, the must shall foam_

_Round the white feet of laughing girls_

_Whose sires have marched on Rome._

_–_Horatius at the Bridge_, Macaulay_

* * *

**Central Valley, Calfree, Feb 2053**

There were mornings when Susan woke up feeling forty instead of twenty-three. Like she was filled with straining stitches, instead of nanite-spun flesh and synthetic blood from countless medkits. Some Runners who'd been twice as long in the game hadn't seen so much fighting. Hard as she trained and pushed her body, she got tired sometimes. Firm as meditation held her mind, the nightmares and doubts crept back.

She made a fist over the scar on her bare breast. Docwagon brought you back to a different, weightier world. Finally knowing for certain, you could die...no, without the nyuyen to buy her life from a megacorp, she _should've_ died. Harry and Ilsa, too. She'd fought down her fear yet again–the fights with bandits and mutant ghouls had proved it–but she still got bad headaches sometimes. She wasn't so fast as she should be.

You got maybe three extra lives, before brain damage shut you down. A Fixer she'd worked with in Seattle, Docwagoned three times, had gotten shakes in his cyberlimbs too bad to lift a datapad. He'd been lucky, of course. It was death, snatching it all in an instant, like poor Croce, Iraj and Sandra, that made it hard to get up in the morning.

Harry had his own scars. She tenderly stroked the two bullet marks on his abdomen, from Redmond and San Francisco. The wider rifle-scar on his shoulder, from _El Infierno_ where he'd saved her again. Then the little mark over the nerve cluster behind his collarbone, where the Triad enforcer had slid the needle in until he'd screamed. Hong Kong had swept him from heaven to hell and even further down.

Adept Pain Resistance had held the process of torture up, until his crew had gotten to him, but the Triad men had told him all that would be done before he died. Like Susan, beaten and helpless that night in Redmond, he'd been terrified. But he'd buried it under steel for years, because almost getting fed your own tool seemed a ridiculous thing to be unmanned by. After six months of marriage it had all come up. Susan had held him as tight as she held him now, while he cried like a child.

"…love?" His hand drifted down her back, as her embrace woke him, "You okay?"

"Perfect. Just thinking. Maybe getting up and going on is what makes heroes, sometimes."

"Don't have to go just yet…?"

Susan grinned into her husband's brown eyes. If he was awake, he was ready. As his palm curled round her hoop and squeezed, she kissed him slowly. As if it were the very last time.

-0-

_"…this Run will be our last, if you wish to join me–but before that, I need your help. I am being tracked by one of our old enemies, Susan. It will take both of us to draw him out, but with a little support I think we can dispose of him permanently. If we are to be free of this threat, this is the time to strike. Come ready to fight, or, if we must, to run."_

They'd talked over Ilsa's call the day before, but if _she_ was asking for help there was no question. Their days at the little house in the valley were numbered in any case, if the Native Californians they'd fought were really working with Saito. They packed all they really needed into their plain civilian van (which wasn't much, by design). Pup lay down under the back seat. Susan patted her head, squeezed Harry's hand. She put on her yellow scarf and her spiked gloves, tied back her hair, and then they drove away from their home.

They met Ilsa near a pileup of autos that had been rusting by the freeway for years. She pulled up on time in a black Bulldog, the ubiquitous Runner's van. She hadn't come alone–but Susan's only thought was to fling herself against the redhead mage and try to hug just as long and hard as she'd missed her. Parting from friends was a Shadowrunning staple that had always bitten hard on her, and Ilsa was a chummer rooted in her heart.

"_Wiz_…_Dr_ Tresckow, am I right? How does that feel?"

"You presume correctly, Susan. I feel…I missed you too."

They'd kept in touch over the net, but only with words. Susan needed to know the truth of all Ilsa had done and felt. She looked poised and stunning as ever in her dark pantsuit, with three buttons undone against the heat–but every reunion with Susan seemed to find her more solemn and hardened. Being born to fall into the Shadows meant you never stopped falling deeper.

"This is a surprising honour." Harry was left to welcome Ilsa's companion, "How fares San Francisco, your majesty?"

Norton–self-proclaimed Emperor of California and the UCAS, Protector of Aztlan–seemed naturally unchanged from memory. Someone had donated a new army dress uniform, and the brilliant darting twinkle in his eyes was more intense than they'd ever seen, but they were sure Norton would only change when California itself vanished away.

Norton's canine companions, Bummer and Lazarus, hopped out of Ilsa's van to stretch their legs. They ran about as far as Susan–and Pup, pressed against her thigh. Pup sat back and regarded the two powerfully built part-hellhounds, who stared back at her.

Bummer was first to trot forward, sniffing confidently. Only to swivel, as his lifelong friend gave a jealous growl. Pup flicked her ears haughtily and scratched. Oblivious to this little drama, Norton beamed at Susan and Harry before assuming a declamatory stance.

"Dear to our heart as this welcome is–Sir Hotspur, my dear Lady Susan!–we scarcely have time to stand here and speak of old adventures. Lady Susan, renowned Hotspur–the whole land of Calfree stands in peril and desperate need!"

In spite of Norton's delivery, Susan and Harry had received this impression of America's violent ward ever since they'd arrived. The steely serious look in Ilsa's eyes, as she adjusted her glasses, made a stronger impression. Not that the gravity of the situation could be doubted, as Norton began to say something about war, and a gate of smoke and thunder suddenly yawned above their heads.

The heat struck them all like a furnace-flood. Pup bolted and hid under the van. Bummer and Lazarus leapt back with hackles raised. Fighter and Hotspur summoned all their Ki, as they saw it. As the frightening shape of a dragon might appear in a cloud, they realised that the glaring mass of flames above was only a single eye.

_"Ilsa Tresckow. Susan Lei. This meeting has been long in coming! Yet I promised, in Seattle and in Berlin, you would rue with agony the day you crossed TORPHET! I will not ask you to beg for mercy–" _

"NORTON!" Ilsa shouted, "Banish this spirit with me!"

Norton wasn't so mad as to quibble over manners at such a time. His eyes bulged from his weathered face, more bold and manic than ever, as he threw up his hands.

"THE RULER OF THIS LAND COMMANDS YOU, DEMON! DEPART FROM THIS COUNTRY FOREVER AND DO NOT THREATEN OUR PEOPLE AGAIN!"

From the dry soil of his land, threads of power flowed up to blaze in Norton's palms. Around Torphet, a dozen ash-black spirits blazed in mid-air. The titanic gathering power rolled Ilsa's eyes back in her head with holy joy. But Fighter had barely time to think why the Free Spirit could monologue at an ambush, before she got her answer. A long avalanche of fire dropped from the spirits onto them all, exploding like napalm in the morning.

There was no air to fill a scream, and Fighter was blind. She only felt a dull pain–because all of them were dead, she was certain. But then the ache down to her atoms was as if half her body had been scoured off and remade. Perhaps she, Harry and Ilsa were no more themselves than Docwagon vat-clones from now on. But she would still fight, because Norton's magic had saved them.

Her vision was coming back. The tremendous golden light from Norton's hand was fading. The Emperor collapsed in a dead faint–but if Torphet had also expended power, they had a chance.

And their van was a blasted wreck on its side. Fighter couldn't see Pup, if her only girl were dead…she would dive through metaplanes of inferno to wipe Torphet from existence.

On the ground, Hotspur drew his Browning and fired. He leapt away from six firebolts, as the fiery eye contracted with wrath. Ilsa's Fireball burst in the pack of spirits; the raw force of the blast threw them in every direction. Towards the ground, as Bummer and Lazarus ran and leapt. Hellhounds weren't afraid of fire; their jaws ripped a writhing spirit into wisps of smoke.

Then Fighter leapt aside, kicked off the side of the Bulldog van. Firebolts sizzled behind, she flew up beside the highest fire spirit. Her fist threw out an extinguishing blast of pure Ki.

Fighter tumbled away from firebolts as she dropped. The fiery eye beneath her became a mouth. Ilsa swiftly hurled a Manabolt and it drew back, snarling.

Kicking out through two more spirits as she twisted through roaring air, Fighter dropped down untouched beside Hotspur. As he slashed up through another spirit, stooping down on them like a burning hawk.

Ilsa's Firewall had absorbed a barrage of attacks. As the fire spirits swooped around it, she dodged their arrows of flame. She'd had to Heal Lazarus from a bad firebolt hit, and now Fighter, as she rolled aside from two attacks right into a third. She was staggered by mana drain, as a crackling spirit above her threw out a claw. Hotspur turned and put two bullets through its long, bestial face.

The remaining fire spirits drew back and circled; flight was a powerful advantage against close combat specialists. Ilsa threw up another Firewall to encircle herself. When a spirit appeared directly above her, she was ready to blast it.

Fighter and Hotspur sweated under the heat, dodging the firestorm from all sides. Bolts burnt through Mystic Shields to scorch their limbs, but nothing to bring them down.

When Ilsa's manabolts had taken out all but two of the fire spirits, they finally dived on the Runners from either side like living missiles. Fighter tried to think where she could dodge, how she could save Ilsa–then Lazarus' eyes glowed red above his snarl. One spirit stopped still in mid-air before it exploded. They evaded the last fireball–Susan snatched up the unconscious Norton–with only minor burns over their minor burns.

Hotspur dropped his sword to slot another mag in his gun; grimly aimed it up at Torphet. The fiery eye closed up with a deafening snarl.

_"You cannot escape me, mayflies. Dance on for a moment, in pitiful fear, before your world burns." _

-0-

"Susan, love…you _really_ kicked that monster's hoop in your first year?"

"Well, Ilsa and me were such a great team…"

"As I recall it, we had the assistance of four Wind Dancers, and I left in a Docwagon." Ilsa drily cut in, "In any case, I am now certain that the spirit we fought beneath Seattle was a spark or ember; a subordinate manifestation of a greater entity. As were the embers we fought today. All of them were Torphet and Torphet is un-banished. Now we know more of what we must destroy...a Free Spirit of uncontrollable destruction. I am sorry. Again, I was...!"

"No, Wiz. It's okay." Susan reached for her shoulder and squeezed, "You told us to be ready for trouble. You told us you were in trouble, chummer."

They were speeding north on the Five in Ilsa's scorched but still armoured van. Norton was sprawled unconscious in the back, his dogs whining at his feet. Ilsa was beside him and Harry was driving. Susan had one arm tight around Pup, on her lap. Norton's power had saved her girl from destruction with the rest of the party. They had seen faint smoke from their house on the horizon, so leaving her there would have been worse. According to Ilsa, Torphet's embers would have followed the essence trail back to Harry and Susan's homely hearth as easily as a lighthouse, to destroy it.

"Susan, are you–?"

"Yes, love. I never thought I'd have a real home again, I…I'm fine."

Trying to drown the roaring in his ears with talk–and the engine-growl of the Bulldog, as his foot pressed down–Hotspur challenged Ilsa as to why Norton wasn't ruling Calfree already, with power like that. She outlined her theory that a very different Free Spirit from Torphet had set its power and madness on the old man, without his understanding. She'd hoped that one spirit would counter another; she had at least foreseen that the spirit of fire would underestimate the beggar king.

"Torphet's essence tracking powers are keener than any human mage; he will pursue us with redoubled strength. We will require a fortress, with top-grade wards, until we can determine a solution. That is fortuitously one of the perks attached to the Run of which I spoke."

"Slow down." Harry spoke harshly, over the grinding of wheels on the broken road, "Why's Torphet after us now? It's because you took this Run, isn't it? I couldn't take in half of what you told Susan on the comm, so you'd better tell us everything now."

"In abstract; Tir Tairngire are going to invade northern Calfree, within months. Torphet began stalking me after I was engaged by Kali to organise the defence, on behalf of her new bosses at Mitsuhama. Torphet doubtless expected I would lead him to you. This is something rather more a shadowrun–I knew I could hardly win a war alone."

Harry burst out laughing, briefly. He almost wished he could believe it.

"…three Prime Runners, three dogs and one Emperor? Facing Tir on the battlefield, standing in front of the tanks? Doesn't Mitsuhama have an army for these jobs? Doesn't Calfree?"

"Ugh…alas, Sir Hotspur!" Norton was speaking as soon as he woke, "An army that scarcely has guns, nor uniforms to clothe itself, such is the rapacious corruption of Sacramento! The pretended leaders of this once-proud nation are unworthy. The riches of Los Angeles and San Francisco are lost. Disorder and division hold lamentable sway. Even yet, the people of this sovereign land have courage and strength. They have those three heroes that foiled the traitor Shavarus, and they have a king! The time is come for us all to stand together in our destiny."

Harry felt an unworldly tingle throughout his body. Susan stared into Norton's eyes, shining like royal diamonds. Something had changed–with war, everything changed. After years of holding court over graveyard peace, Norton was going forth to save his nation. Perhaps to truly win a crown. Kali had known what she was doing–Susan and Harry knew it–when she had tempted Norton with his own quixotic dreams. Succeeded where Shavarus had failed, in acquiring an Emperor for her plans.

"The token border guard will not last twelve hours." Ilsa stated, "If they fight at all, against combat mages, rotorcraft and panzers. Tir has claimed the land from Eureka to Redding since they annexed the remainder of north Calfree in '36. If they take Redding without resistance, they will most probably take everything else of Calfree they can seize. If the Japanacorps deploy troops to defend the valley farmlands, the Imperial Marines will follow. The invasions of '36, when Calfree appealed to Japan for aid, led to the San Francisco occupation. Saito and his faction have dreamt for years of occupying the state on a similar pretext."

"A true and incisive summation, worthy ambassador!" Norton burst in, as Ilsa paused for breath, "The misguided Tir, furthermore, banished all but elves from the lands they seized without cause. The exiled survivors, the Calfree Gypsies, wander homeless and friendless down to this very day."

"Your majesty, if Calfree's people are caught between fascist elves and fanatical marines, their fates will be rather worse than that. Then Tir's NAN allies would fight beside them. Even Atzlan and UCAS do not want a Japanese west coast. A continental war. Perhaps an end to the San Francisco occupation, in time–but that is what dear Kali most wishes to prevent. She has provided specialists and funds for us to set up an independent militia in Redding. A proxy force to resist Tir, until some sane resolution can be achieved."

"…Harry, darling, slow the van down. And watch the road."

Pup had been whining for some minutes, as the van attained a terrific speed under Harry's boot. A shallow pothole under-tyre threw them about like flies in a jar. Harry still stared ahead, but he clearly was not seeing the empty road before them.

Susan tried to take it in. From Redmond to Calfree, she'd always walked with death. The Shadow life demanded discipline and resilience–but in the end it was just you and your chummers, getting the loot and getting out, SINless and free. She knew war was something else. Landscapes scarred by shells. Helpless towns wiped out from the air. Soldiers tied to the stake, to die so thousands might live–or to watch thousands die, at the will of generals and men in suits. Orion, her _shifu_, had told enough for her to know war was another world.

"The heroes of San Francisco stand against Tir." Harry finally spoke, "An army rises around them–that's how it begins? Kali's greatest show, the Run to end all our Runs. No one could take it except us. Only, exactly how does it end?"

"Harry…"

Susan stared at her husband, her childhood friend–the heroic Runner who'd never asked that question, let alone about a Run like this. Her eyes were sad, even as her heart swelled with love for her man.

"Did true hero ever turn back from such a needful cause?" Norton cried out, waving his hands even in the confines of the van, "Is there honour in the Shadows, chivalry when thousands lie defenceless? If you are the man of your boyhood dreams, Sir Hotspur! If you are such a man as your honest and loving friends know you to be–!"

"_Norton!_ Your majesty!" Susan bit her lip and bowed her head, "Please, give us a little time. Even if you command us, we can only take this Run by our own choice."

"Absolutely true. Certainly, think about it and talk." Ilsa reassured her, "There are people already in Redding you will wish to speak with as well. There is never surety in war–but even a chance of success will require commitment more than absolute."

Harry nodded, glancing gingerly at Norton. The Emperor's heart had always been with healing and protection, but if the power they'd seen could be enraged…?

"We are no tyrant, Lady Susan, to overstep the natural bounds of kingship." Norton lay back, weary, "Decorum and restraint, the royal dignity of our station and the freedoms of our people, have ever been the pillars of our spirit. Where I might command, I will implore. Your choice indeed cannot be taken from you–nor your place in the world, nor your destiny. This land must change, to face the storm, and even an Emperor must change with it. May the changes of these days spare our lives and souls…"

"You saved all our lives, your majesty." Susan smiled at Norton, as Ilsa cast a strengthening cantrip, "Thank you."

"Did I? I confess, there are times I feel myself somewhat confused..."

Norton closed his eyes. Bummer and Lazarus settled down at his feet, as the van sped towards Redding. Towards the coming war, upon which the eyes and ambitions of all the land's rulers were turning. Susan stared at the man with the power of a spirit, the Emperor who would be king in the north. The wandering madman with no home to lay his head–like her and Harry, now, and Ilsa. And the people of Redding, if the power of Tir descended on them unchecked.

She thought about the change that was coming. Buried her face in Pup's dark neck. The thing called war stood ahead of them like a black cloud–formless and unreadable, but more fatally real than anything she or her chummers had faced. She didn't know if it could be fought by one girl and her fists, but she would try. And she was sure Harry and Ilsa, the chummers she loved, would be with her.

-0-

**Mount Hood Forest, Tir Tairngire**

Tir Tairngire's Council of Princes was hosting a cultural soiree for high nobility and friendly diplomats, in the woods outside Portland. Elite guards in shining black armour stood between towering trees, while White Banner snipers watched invisibly from the foliage. The UCAS ambassador joked to Lugh Surehand, High Prince, that he had never felt safer. The sheer perfection of Surehand's answering smile, and the smiles of the lesser Princes, gave them an unsettling uniformity. Such lengths of shining hair and acres of flawless skin surrounded, that all the beauty of world seemed to have collected in one little grove, for the Princes of Tir.

The customary simple vegetarian dishes and extraordinary wines were laid out on pure white tables. Representatives of several Corps and nations found a beautiful Tir lady, or lord, at their side, with guileless eyes and an irresistible desire to hear of their own country's traditions. Surehand himself impressed the ambassadors from Tir na nOg and Salish-Shidhe with his knowledge of _rinnce fada_ and the Eagle totem sun dance.

Then the entertainments began with haunting flute and harp pieces–not by sordid professional musicians, but gently-born and exquisitely skilled amateurs. The young women of the court performed a swirling dance, and the young men a dramatic sword dance. The original dances had been lost with the Fourth World–unless that old conspiracy theory about immortal elves among the Princes were actually true–but the modern choreography was a masterpiece, and the waif-slim body of each dancer, breath-taking. No one even remembered that accompanying music was being piped from very modern speakers surrounding the grove–except for one old man who appeared mildly bored, with white hair and golden eyes.

The next item was provided by a Prince of Tir himself. Some of the tipsier human worthies were foolish enough to laugh at what appeared to be a three-metre ape, with knuckles hanging below his knees. The elves and everyone else with any sense, however, applauded with respect. The wonders of nature held pride of place in their hearts (It could not be otherwise, though all the elves drove cars and many had personal aircrafts). Sasquatches, the old men of the woods, were quintessentially natural, magical and lovable. Surehand whispered to the Salish-Shidhe ambassador that 'Rex' was the most popular of the Council of Princes at every level of Tir society. It was quite a mercy that peoples so enlightened as the two Tirs and their NAN friends were left to the Earth, who truly valued its most enchanting natural treasures.

'Rex' deigned to announce himself with his true name, a twenty second song unpronounceable by metahumans. His true song, gilded with his own magic, strung sounds together that had never kissed before, began certain notes that then somehow extended from the start of his performance to the end, and finally wove something quite uncanny–yet also entirely warm and uplifting.

"No slanderer could say that we admit none but elves to the Council, Herr Brackhaus," A _very_ tipsy duke of Tir noted, when the encores had finished, "And yet Prince 'Rex' has no discernable interests outside of music; we're not sure he even knows what government is. A holy innocent. Stuffed toys have even been made of him; did you know? My children love them." He duly presented Hans Brackhaus with a small cuddly sasquatch, which Lofwyr's representative regarded woodenly, "Something for your secretary? Or perhaps something of the kind would soften Lord Lofwyr's image?"

"Lord Lofwyr…may perhaps suggest the idea to Dunkelzahn." Brackhaus pronounced mildly, in the horrified silence, "That fellow is so consumed by his public image. As for Lord Lofwyr, it does not concern him greatly if he is feared, loved or forgotten. It is his own will, against any possible world, that determines his destiny."

He gripped the stuffed toy for a moment, then tossed it to his companion. Jacqueline, Brackhaus' secretary-bodyguard-factotum in North America, had assumed her true white-haired sasquatch form rather than her usual human illusion. She claimed to have mastered human speech through skillwires.

"The toy does not do him justice," She claimed, gazing after the sasquatch prince as he departed, "I might imagine that he was a king in Babylon, and I was a Christian slave."

This comment filled the grove with laughter, the duke was quickly escorted away, and the guests resumed their efforts to respectfully forget Herr Brackhaus' presence.

It was as if Sauron had come to Lothlorien. Even for those who weren't fully aware that he was himself Lord Lofwyr, the Golden Wyrm–CEO of Saader Krupp and Prince of Tir Taingire's council. The elvish Princes who'd forged their young homeland secure against a meta-hating world were the last persons who'd ever willingly have dealt with a dragon. What Lofwyr wanted, however, he generally obtained.

"You will leave for Seattle this evening," Brackhaus whispered to his secretary, "And look into that business with the Universal Brotherhood. This time do not eat anybody who may be of use later on. I will personally take over matters here, and also the reins of the fire spirit. Did _Fräulein _Lei and her associates–_Frau_, I should say–survive his initial attack?"

"They did. By the spirits, I'd love to break her."

Brackhaus smiled thinly. His secretary was a female of parts, with more deception to her than, for example, Prince Surehand.

"I have use for her unbroken, just at present. I will employ Torphet in a related matter. For all his power and scope, his mind is simple as a hunting dog's. A being of pure destruction has much to learn, in matters of calculated revenge."

Meanwhile, the Tir elves had deployed their _pièce de résistance_. Five natural and elemental spirits were raised from the grove and directed in an awesome, magically-blazing dance with five agile and extremely courageous elves. Even more than the sword dance, it was a reminder of Tir Taingire's power; the steely and fanatical training of its military was legendary as its magic. It was shown as a provincial, unworldly strength, however, rather than anything the assembled delegates should personally fear. At the height of the celebrations, the High Prince rose to speak.

"Noble lords. My friend, Herr Brackhaus. Honoured guests. It is our pleasure to meet you on this auspicious day. With the recent trade agreement between our Land of Promise and the metropolis of Seattle, I see before Tir Taingire and all its neighbours a new era of cooperation and understanding–our ways may differ, but our dreams are akin to yours. There is no absurd elvish conspiracy for world domination. No plot except our blessed plot of ground; our little world, our Eden. A land of our own, where we might walk our own path in safety and peace.

"I have been advised to relieve your minds regarding the calumnious rumours–alas, we all have our enemies–regarding our southern border. Tir has not the least desire, on my honour, to mount any kind of invasion. The safety of our home is the sole desire of our hearts; sole, and unchangeable. The former state of California, conversely, has failed to secure even the safety of its people–or the safety of our people, defenceless before near-daily Humanis outrages. Calfree has no use, or even respect, for the many sites of magic in its northern forests. The reoccupation of the Eureka-Redding strip, claimed by Calfree for a time, will bring stability and peace. It will not bring war, or anything that need distract us from a pleasant repast one moment longer."

Brackhaus clapped with the rest–at another breed of performing monkey. To his mind, Surehand had merely gilded the lily with this whole display. The world did not care what elves and Californians did to each other in a failed state, and would Japan be so mad as to gamble for North Calfree, when it had half the world?

Lord, what fools. Who could ever be content with half a world?

In the following weeks, diplomatic farces with a similar purpose were enacted in capitals across disunited America. In Tir, many hundreds of Peace Force reservists reported in for retraining, grateful for the extra pay. Even fairyland had slums, and ignoble peasants to fill them.

In Redding, North Calfree, the whispers were that everyone except elves would be banished and anyone who resisted would be killed. Other rumours claimed that elves remaining in Redding would be shot as traitors to their race. All that Tir's–mostly human–agents had to do to spread fear was sit in a bar and talk.

While across a border of barbed wire and minefields, an army of green-cloaked, bright-eyed elves was already gathering. They played commlink games about hacking through orkish hordes, then comm-called their elvish families in the safety of Portland or Salem–_Cara'Sir_, or _Malek'thas_. They complained of the waiting, recleaned their guns, and stood ready to march. Into the land of shadows and vermin beyond the borders of their home.


	16. The Last Call pt2

_…but when the face of Sextus was seen among the foes,_

_A yell that rent the firmament from all the town arose,_

_On the house-tops was no woman but spat at him and hissed,_

_No child but screamed out curses and shook its little fist._

_-_Horatius at the Bridge_, Macauley_

**Redding, North Calfree**

Susan and Harry hadn't given a minute's previous thought to the little city of the trails that would be the centre of their lives to come. Notable for nothing so much as being sited about thirty kilometres from an army of hostile elves with machine guns, Redding was a city of empty lots and empty houses. Pale, grave SINers in flannel and denim, driving pickups to smalltowny stores; the odd bombed-out ruin from '36, choked with weeds. They saw widely spaced houses, and more ranks of spreading trees than they'd seen in Beverley Hills–or imagined, as Redmond slum kids. The megacorps had left some forests unlevelled around Redding, when the war convinced them all to divest and pull out. A city standing in the wilderness, almost frozen in time.

They drove past some human kids playing baseball with a few orks. Then a teenage elf, laughing with her human boyfriend over a synathol can. They noted some curious stares, some hard ones; fewer visible guns than any Redmond street, and only a faint perceptible tension, for a city on the edge of destruction. The Runners were more concerned with watching the sky for fire spirits and the streets for Tir assassins, however, than trying to judge a whole community with a single glance. Norton solemnly waved to the populace, though this was obscured by the Bulldog's tinted windows.

Kali had sent up a team the week before, to turn the derelict city hall into a central base for her proxy army. A gloomy dwarf with a truck of guns outside the building (Harry remembered him tending bar last year in Kali's Club Eclipse), shouted to Ilsa that he'd start looking for another war, unless he saw some nyuyen soon.

Ilsa's immediate business, however, was with a sleek, toothily-cute ork girl in a shaman's jacket. She'd set up some strong wards on the hall, as arranged by comm; with the fresh maglocks and security cams they could see, it at least looked like somewhere they could catch their breath.

"Kali advanced a small fortune in setup funds," Ilsa told Susan and Harry, "But we will soon need to either secure additional funding, or feed and clothe an army off our own credsticks. Do you at least have some money left, or did you donate it all to that women's shelter again?"

"Of course we didn't donate it _all._" Susan hit back, "Ms Fawkes isn't a shadowrunner, so she went and actually invested some nyuyen in megacorp stocks; I talked Harry out of disowning her. So, the shelter has funds for the future...but with medical fees and travel expenses, we're sort of flat broke."

"I'd knock down my prices even more, only I've got to pay suppliers." The young ork shaman, one Hrafna, apologised, "I'd fight if I were a great shadowrunner, or even a very good shaman–but if you need talismans or healing salves, I can help you there. Tir Taingire get the best magic components from Mount Shasta, just to the north, but there's still a bit of smuggling and I know a guy."

"If Tir have Mount Shasta and the rest of the north," Harry asked, "Why the frag are they talking war over a thirty-klick strip?"

"Firstly, the caves near Shasta Lake also have buried magic," Ilsa told him, "The Tir elves honestly regard all the magic in the world as their rightful property. Secondly, the hill country could be fortified against a Japanese invasion. Much of the less-magical forests in North Calfree have already given way to barbed wire and bunkers. Thirdly, Tir was pushed back from Redding to Eureka in '36 by a year of traumatic guerrilla warfare, with atrocities on both sides. Vengeance gives quite the cloak of righteousness to conquest."

"With respect, ma'am–" Even before legendary Runners, Hrafna stuck out her chin, "–Redding did what it had to do in '36. You know Tir told everyone to get out, except for elves, but the Redding elves stood with their neighbours to fight back? There's whispers on the street, all the elves in Redding will just be hunted down and killed this time. Frag knows what they'd do to the rest of us, though Humanis fraggers are already calling all the metas spies for Tir. Just scaring families and spraying tags so far–but you're going to shut them down before it gets worse?"

Her brown doe-eyes confidently appealed to the heroes who'd driven into town. Norton instantly assured her she had nothing to fear; Harry only gave a gallant smile that Susan recognised as forced. As Hrafna greeted the dogs, Harry marched past and pushed through the doors of the city hall, Susan and Ilsa behind him.

-0-

It was mostly empty space and fresh paint inside, with dust dancing in the light from high windows. Pup slipped past and trotted approvingly round the wide floorspace, closely pursued by Bummer and Lazarus. It wasn't the first time Susan had envied dogs the troubles they were spared.

About a dozen warm bodies were about, several talking at once. There were Kali's people from San Francisco, including a short-haired, soldierly elf lady who presented herself as Selene, their quartermaster. She briefly introduced them to Archangel and Casper, two more Runners hired for their military experience. Hotspur and Fighter had known of them as chill pros and stone-cold killers, but not yet famous names by any means.

There was a huge, bearded ork called Tomas with an AK-97, who reasserted that Redding's defence would be led by the Citizens of Redding Defence Force. About twenty weekend warriors, including most of their leader's extended family.

"But of course," Ilsa glanced at Norton, who was proceeding with an inspection of his new castle, "Think of us all as military advisors."

Then there were two more Runners who Susan would never forget. Small as Hayley was beneath Sarah's mountainous hunched shoulders, the 'Frisco decker always seemed bigger because of her bounces.

"_Susan!_ I mean, _Fighter!_ Hotspur, Miss Tresckow…_hi!_ It's so chill we're all here, doing this together, isn't this all, like, just, totes, totes _novahot?_"

"_Shifu._" Sarah inclined her horned head to Susan.

She had studded gloves on her fists, and a Semopal rifle slung over her back. Susan could see the troll girl had fought through a full first year in the Shadows; still, she felt for her troubled eyes. She asked what she asked, because wars meant death and some Runners deserved more than that.

"Sarah, what are you doing here?"

"Trying to do some good, if a troll can do that, _shifu_." Furious eyes, a growl to rip skin away, "Isn't it the same for you?"

"It's certainly a rare motive for shadowrunners," Selene moved between them, "Or we'd have more of a base to build from than this."

"Chip truth? Some fraggers in Redding ain't much better!" Tomas, the local fighter, offered loudly, "Half of 'em don't think there'll be a war–there's been scares, before now–and more than half think it's pointless to fight for our homes unless they know we'll win! There's some other defence forces, and every house has a gun, but there's no organisation. Like every man's supposed to defend his home and family, himself, from Tir's whole army!"

"A rather Utopian, _American_ ideal, certainly." Ilsa's smile was taunt as Harry's had been, "Am I correct in surmising that your brother militias are hesitant to work with outsiders?"

"This is an independent kind of place, Dr Tresckow. We'd fight the fragging daisy-eaters, coming down to take our homes. Fight the fragging Marines, if they march in to make another San Francisco of us. We'd fight those Sacramento puppets, who'd sell us all to Japan for a nyuyen! Standing ready to fight has kept us free, but we need unity to face this war. We all need to fight in the streets and the hills–we need to drown the Tir in blood, like our fathers in '36! You people know what I'm talking about. We need heroes who can kill as many elves as it takes."

Harry's boyish face was still and silent. Susan knew what was eating him, the only thing he feared, and she wished she knew how to kill it.

"More than speeches or even troops, we need supplies." Selene responded, "Before we work on unifying the militias or recruiting, we need to be ready to feed and arm them. Milspec guns and armour, not home-defence drek, or the battlefield will chew them up."

"It might be cheaper in the long term to hire mercenaries," Ilsa offered, "Although the major groups such as MET 2000 and Tsunami will have been blocked by the Tir, and we hardly have the nyuyen at present for a small force."

"Um, we do need comms and Matrix kit to, like, fight a modern army, with all those planes and tanks." Hayley raised her hand, "I should say we _did_ need it; I sort of got in first and already bought it…" Ilsa's expression would have made a sparrow drop out of the sky.

"There is one further matter, my friends." Norton calmly strode up to the debate, "How could supplies be brought to this charming city, if something is not done about the condition of the roads? The noble freeway we passed over today was not only in disgraceful disrepair, but, doubtless, invested with bandits. That remedied, our own royal army might be brought up to this place, and the defence of fair Redding swelled by hundreds of loyal fighters!"

"…what army?" This from Tomas, "Who the frag…?"

"The Emperor Norton." Harry snapped, "You should all get on fine with him."

"Ilsa, could you–?"

As Susan followed Harry into a side office, Ilsa adroitly excused them. Then she prepared her own argument for supplies over soldiery, while Emperor Norton told Redding's defenders just who he was and what he had come to do. Several of his audience still stared after Fighter and Hotspur, however. The Prime Runners who had lived through death and made the impossible their job hadn't had to say much, to dominate the room.

-0-

Susan and Harry faced each other in the office. Their faces were drawn with tension, but it was a time for strength and honesty, not embraces.

"So, the gang's all here, except Orion and Anya." Harry got out, "They always were the smart ones. Norton's Army, local militias? Half-trained green civilians, with some corp-surplus guns, against panzers, rotorcraft, battle mages and the Tir Ghosts! Half of them don't know what that means, and the rest of them don't care. Do you think that ork sounding off back there ever geeked more than a squirrel before?"

"No, but I think he'd learn. We could train his people, together. Haven't we always found a way, Harry? If Hayley can hack milspec comms, then we could hit their openings hard and dodge the counterstrikes. Ilsa will deal with their magic, like she did before, and I'm ready to die by your side doing something like this. Isn't this the Run to change the world, like you wanted since you were born?"

"Susan…that's how it starts. Good plans, good intentions, but war isn't a shadowrun. No control, no limits, no plans that ever stop the death! Douglas. Fyrefox. Roller. My chummers died for frag all in Hong Kong, because I led them into the Triad war. Hundreds of others. Street kids caught in the crossfires, families hacked to death, because setting the Red Dragons against the Yellow Lotus seemed like a brilliant plan! Guerrilla war means hostages, massacres, reprisals and futility; I've seen them enough in nightmares, and _why should you ever see that drek_, my angel? I fragged up our first Run, I couldn't save you, I couldn't even protect you in L.A. Never had anything but idiot courage, and I guess I'm just an idiot now…but we can walk away from every reason we'd have for doing this. We could take the Renraku Arcology together, just the two of us, and but we don't have to lead hundreds of decent people into death. Leave that to the megacorps and politicians."

Harry had thrown himself back onto a low couch, as he poured out the toxic waste of years. His face was abandoned to deep anguish–but Susan could never have looked on that face and not seen a hero. With an effort, she stood still and held her husband's gaze.

"Harry…did we choose to Run so we could kill and steal? Chip truth, wasn't it to save the weak, with our strength? The Tir think they can take what they want, kill who they want. I don't want to give this place up to them, and this is our only chance. We've...got a chance. Thousands of people might die, horribly...but we both know that, and so do they. This is bigger than us. Ilsa, Sarah and Hayley–hundreds of others are going to fight for Radding, whatever we do–but with your strength and your brilliant, idiot courage, couldn't we try to save them? Frag, why aren't you giving this talk to me? If I wasn't here–or if I promised to stay safe at home this time, training or nursing–wouldn't you be jumping at this?"

"If I were a fool…but you'd do it without me, wouldn't you?" Harry faltered. He slumped over the couch, arms limp, "Your heart would never abandon this drekky town, but I'd let the world go to save you!"

"I'd fight and die for the people here, Harry, but I couldn't lead them into death. I haven't got your vision, your dreams...your chummers followed you for a good dream, like I did. All of us suffered, but you saved me. You came back to me, you never ran. If we'd died lost in the dark on our first Run, you'd still be a perfect hero, you dummy, but we're _here_! I know you, Harry; you can take the pain. You're the only one who could lead these people and save them; that's why the only life I could live is by your side."

Visibly, the cloud of doubts and evil memories finally blew away from Harry's face. Inwardly, he saw Fyrefox and Roller's broken bodies, and Douglas' final smile. His failure, his fear…but in the light of Susan's eyes, it was astonishingly possible to face it. He breathed in, looked at his scarred hands for a moment, then stared up at Susan with a little smile of hope.

"SINless and free. Whatever it costs, even if we know, now, what it means to fight monsters...we don't have to give up. If we find some allies, wear the elves down until the Japanacorps pay them off…we could save Calfree. Show the whole world how monsters can be beaten by free men. How could we ever do that if we didn't fight? I'd be lost without you, babe. Let's go and start a revolution."

"No, stay right there, tiger." Though it was Susan who finally pounced on Harry, forcing him down on the sofa, "Don't say a thing…"

She had a hot minute to show Harry what she felt for a man who could dream of saving a country, but hold back for her sake, with all the passion in her mouth and strength in her grinding hips. Before Ilsa knocked, and they needed a little superhuman speed to fix their clothes. Leadership lesson one; make love all over your secluded villa, not all over your new military command post.

The first thing Harry asked for was a videocall with Kali; Haley duly showed him her shiny new bank of computers and connected him. Kali had swapped her leathers for a suit, as befitted her new role as Mitsuhama's Entertainment and Shadow work chief in Calfree–but her hair was still a rainbow, and her eyes were still hungry.

"Took you long enough, Hotspur. You should know I'm in talks with all the Japanacorps to get support for you; they could even nip this Tir invasion in the bud, if they could agree on anything. You should take the supplies you need from Redding itself, in the meantime. They've rather got the most to lose if you fizzle out. Anything else I need to explain?"

"No, but you could listen. We're going to take this job, but not for Mitsuhama or any megacorp. We're here for the people of Redding, caught between San Francisco and the Tir. The Redding Defence Force is going to fight for this city, not for you–but keep sending us all the money and weapons you've got, Miss Kali, because you know you can't win this war without us."

Tomas, Selene, Sarah, Hayley and Ilsa, round the little room, all instantly straightened up at the strength of Harry's voice. Susan, by his side, was looking down the same rails to the same star of destiny–or perhaps an inferno in their path, but neither of them could help smiling. Kali looked over them all and nodded in satisfaction.

-0-

**Chico, Calfree central valley, one week later**

"It is perhaps ironic," Ork Slayer addressed the conference table, "That the leaders of so-called 'hate groups' should assemble in a spirit of brotherhood."

"'So-called'?" Snorted the Humanis field commander for Calfree, a chinlessly obese man, "Hate is what we need, to make this a nation worth saving."

The six other Humanis leaders at the table eyed Ork Slayer's impassive mask. They'd always thought of him as a useful crazy–at this time of tremendous threat and opportunity, however, there was no room for crazy. He had at least ensured the security of this meeting, in his territory closest to Redding, by holding it in the Chico central police station.

"It is an insult to human rights and human strength!" The fat commander held forth, "That the soulless metas threaten to lay filthy hands on our pure human country! This is the time for us to gather every true Californian and purge the metas out like tics from a blanket! Before the monsters poison and twist our world into a dark age dungheap!"

"First, we should mobilise all our allies in Sacramento," Another leader insisted, "And ensure that nothing keeps Saito's marines from marching north. With the Japs holding the elves off, we'll be free to rid the valley of metas, witches and gypsies."

"If we mean to unite Calfree against the elvish threat," Ork Slayer spoke quietly, "Should we not begin by unifying our organisations under a single leader?"

"I wouldn't object to that," The commander looked down what passed for his nose, "Clear out some corruption in the ranks, as well. Is it true, some of your mob are actually _magic-users?_ You'd best get geeking them, if you want to keep your seat."

"Magic is a mere tool, much like my sword. A Native Californian slays the metahuman with every tool at his disposal. He has no need to pollute his work by allying with degenerate Japanese monkeys."

The table fell silent. All the Humanis leaders were white, and their lowest street thugs were Asian or black, but…

"….those monkey are our oldest allies! The strongest human army on the west coast! Is this a joke?"

"I do not make jokes, Mr Bullion." Ork Slayer's voice remained level, grating–faintly tinged with the most tremendous hate. "The Japanese are invaders of Calfree, and I do not care about their strength–I was only born to kill the enemies of true mankind."

The Humanis chiefs would have expected a squad of NC gunmen to have burst into the conference shooting, at this point, except the commander would never have met Ork Slayer on his home turf without his own hit squad on call. He signalled them now, but only a faint thumping outside the door resulted, as Ork Slayer stood up.

"One of my subordinates prepared a magelock–" he explained, as his sword flashed through a bull neck, "–in anticipation of your treachery. This should make the unification a simple matter."

A minute later, Ork Slayer dropped from the third storey window to the street–a dangerous fall in armour, if not for his adept powers. He flicked blood from his sword, then moved off swiftly into the night, drawing a burner commlink and dialling a Redding number.

"Commence operation _Wacht am Rhein_. Hotspur has already begun to set up a corrupted defence of Redding. You must act now, without further preparation. Ensure that our benefactor continues to supply you with weapons."

A dozen more calls activated every Native Californian warband–which included virtually every Humanis cell in Calfree, before sunrise. For every chief killed by Ork Slayer, there had been a lieutenant on his payroll; all dissenters were killed before they could even voice their dissent.

Humanis fighters, in camps and chapter houses across the valley, generally took to the sudden denouncing of their old allies and leaders like catnip. They had a bold, incorruptible new chief, a new purpose to steel them against the storm–and they had another pack of monkeys to hate. Their ranks were swollen with bandit groups, who'd happily lynched their metahuman ex-comrades, as well as hundreds of farmboys, conscripted under the threat of their families being burnt in their homes. Daily stories of the brutish hordes in Orkland, and their cruel elvish puppet-masters, quickly forged them all into an army that Calfree would not be worthy of until they had saved it in every sense.

Ork Slayer finally triggered a pre-recorded message _via_ Net, radio and local trideo. He had joined his main force outside Chico by this time, but their rapturous response seemed to give him no more pleasure than anything else.

_"We are the Native Californians. We have assembled to save this nation from the shadow in the north, and make a land where human heroes will hold back the night forever. All loyal Americans who stand with us will do the work of heroes. All invaders of our land will be hunted and killed. All traitors who aid the enemy by moving troops or goods to the north, without our authority, will be stopped and killed. Purity is our strength, and there is nothing we will not do to free our country."_

-0-

**Portland, Tir Taingire**

"Hans, old chap? May one ask why Lord Lofwyr has expended nearly a million nyuyen from Tir Taingire's black budget….to arm and organise this same Native Californian group which has just sworn to oppose us? I'm sure there's some amusing explanation, but I'd rather like to hear it."

Hans Brackhaus smiled at High Prince Lugh Surehand indulgently, across a marble chessboard in a Royal Hill sitting room.

"The only threat to your little 'reoccupation' is the Japanese Marines, your highness, and Humanis Policlub were their strongest allies in Calfree. The Native Californians hate both the Japanese _and_ Calfree's metahuman factions–the perfect 'enemy of our enemy', since they are enemies to all and allies to none! A nasty, jumped-up little shower of purely destructive maniacs, who I believe will be worth every nyuyen that I paid for them."

Surehand didn't bother to repeat that _Tir_ had paid for them; as a Tir Prince, Lofwyr had control over the black budget. Rather, he sharply inquired what kind of neighbours such fellows would make, once the Redding strip had been annexed?

"The kind that will inevitably annoy you, until you destroy them. Their abuses against Calfree's metahumans will give you ample pretext to occupy the entire state. Their leader is the kind of fanatic who will adopt or abridge any principle whatsoever to gain power–which is the true god of fascism–and will not be held back from destroying himself once he has it. Of course, he may not survive his imminent conflict with the _noble_ defenders of Redding; heroes can be so predictable. A conflict which will leave that region bleeding, in terror and chaos–" By way of illustration, he struck the priceless chess set to the floor, "–before Tir's forces have even crossed the border."

The scattered chessmen spun on the floor; it was the way megacorps toppled countries, the way dragons played with humanity. Surehand glared into Brackhaus' languid, smiling golden eyes, but it was futile. He knew who he had to deal with; the Golden Wyrm who encircled the world and disposed of it as he pleased. He snapped at a hovering footman, who knelt to gather and replace the pieces.

"I suppose we should be grateful," The prince commented, resetting their game from pure memory, "That Lord Lofwyr has taken such an interest in our little excursion. He must believe that the occupation of Calfree will hold considerable opportunities for Saader Krupp?"

"Perhaps. Saader Krupp, according to our agreement, cannot operate within Tir Taingire's borders–but occupied California is not strictly Tir Taingire, is it? A good few opportunities, I should imagine."

Hans Brackhaus smiled faintly, as he moved his King's Knight to B4. Surehand, who had actually beaten the dragon seven times out of a hundred, turned all his mental powers upon the game.

-0-

**Redding, north Calfree**

Hrafna, the young ork shaman, was riding home for the night in a weary state. She hadn't sold many more salves or fetishes during the week, but Susan Lei had somehow coaxed her into a cooking and cleaning rota. War really did take all kinds.

While Ilsa Tresckow had extracted funds from the municipal authorities to begin arming Redding's defenders, Hotspur, Tomas and Norton had raised up their numbers to just over fifty. They still lacked bedrolls, tents or proper transport, and the food situation was still scraping disaster–but Susan had speedily mastered the art of boiling all the nutrisoy she could lay hands on in a giant pot, and mobilising volunteers or their families to do all else needful. Hrafna could now well believe that the storied Fighter would get anything done that she purposed to do. She could also well imagine how Hotspur's plain, unyielding assurance had got him all those women, as well the trust of tough men…it sucked he was taken, but null sweat. She'd literally have an army of hot guys to choose from, soon enough.

She had a long ride out to her cabin on the edge of the woods, so she chained up her electric moped outside one of the three good bars in central Redding. The only ork bar in town was far too macho for her; she'd drunk decent synathol at this place for years, with nothing worse than some nasty looks and worse jokes.

A minute after she'd parked her feet, she finally listened to what her gut was howling–but the doorman was human, and looked like he wouldn't let her leave. She didn't recognise the crop-haired blonde woman across the room, or several tattooed bruisers around her. But the men she was quietly addressing were the sort who propped up every bar in the country, joking or bellyaching about trogs taking the labour jobs. Other men, who'd always eventually told them to can it, were silent now.

One other ork, across the bar, clearly thought he was safe because he was armed. The barmaid was an elf, and she looked like a deer in an Escalade six-wheeler's headlights.

"…don't believe their lies about race traitors. Tir elves, Redding elves; simply elves, loyal to nothing but the elf-ruled world they dream of! They took Oregon and Ireland from humanity with lies, not bullets– they will spread terror and mistrust, then welcome their Tir brothers with open arms. And the trogs will delight in the chaos, plundering your homes as they flee. Killing your children and raping your women, from pure hate–!" The woman's voice shook and broke with pure emotion, "It is the only way they can live! After they killed my friends before my eyes, _after what they did to me_, this is the only way_ I_ can live! _For human California!_"

The one Tir agent Hrafna saw in the crowd had the loudest response. The barmaid suddenly cried out that the NC woman was a liar–she'd never join with killers and rapists, if she'd really been raped–and that was rather more than enough.

The ork shot one man before the NC thugs riddled him with bullets. Hrafna screamed up the strongest hearth spirit she could handle, which poured out sparks at men with bats or stools, forcing them back. She could have forced her way to the door and her moped, but the elf had sunk down behind the bar. She wasn't Susan Lei or even a Runner, but that was no excuse for not being a decent metahuman.

She was halfway across the room when the pool cue hit and staggered her. Her hearth spirit flew to cover her–then the NC woman leapt onto a table and lunged her sword through it. She looked the very image of the warrior woman striking down the monster, as a bat to the arm fizzled Hrafna's acid bolt, and a boot slammed into her jaw.

She could only make out the gleam of shaved heads, through the mist, and flat little human snarls, filled with fear. Someone was shouting _witch_–she should never have summoned that spirit–they would teach her respect–no, it was never wrong to fight. She was too stunned to use magic, or even feel terror, until another boot pinned her to the ground.

"…how can you do this to us…?"

"Because of what you do to us, trog." Steel gleamed before Hrafna's eyes, even as she clenched them shut against the pain, "It's simply human nature."

-0-

**The Five, Central Valley, Calfree**

"_Why_? We're just traders! We head up to Redding every month!"

"You _were_ traders," Ork Slayer turned from the, looted, burning station wagon to the dying ork by the roadside, "Parasites, producing nothing. Except more mockeries of the human form."

He nodded at the three young orks held by his men; the ork woman's elder son and human husband had fought back, and were dead. The morning sky was already marred with smoke, like blood in the water, where roving NC warbands had descended on metahuman or race-traitor homesteads.

"…please, let them go. They never did anything bad to you…"

"You don't think they would? For the slaughter of their family?"

Ork Slayer faced the biggest ork child's defiant glare–then shattered his skull with a single Killing Fist. The ork mother hid her eyes in the dirt and groaned.

"Any trog would do the same to us," Ork Slayer went on, as he drove down two more fatal blows, "They will attempt to, when they see your bodies of your brood of monsters strung up by the freeway. The trog is at war with humanity–the stronger race must exterminate the weaker, to inherit an unpolluted world. It is history, it is nature, and it is the time for heroes of will to do the great work of cleansing. The only good trog is a dead trog."

If the men with guns from Tir had any different thoughts, around the dead ork family, they kept them quiet. Of course, it wasn't murder if it wasn't human, and things that only looked something like humans were naturally unsettling. Killing monsters made their lives simpler, satisfying and indeed rather more lucrative. If they had any more doubts, the Ork Slayer had long been known across Calfree for a certain technique, which did more all his clear-cut speeches to make it clear it was monsters they were dealing with.

When the bodies were finally hung up around an ancient telegraph pole like rotten fruit, all of them had MONSTER carved into their foreheads. As they found Hrafna in the morning, with WEAK carved in blood above her unseeing eyes. As Susan dug her nails into her own brow, when she saw, howling out her futile rage.


	17. Battle (Not) with Monsters

_But by the yellow Tiber was tumult and affright;_

_From all the spacious champaign to Rome men took their flight..._

_Aged folk on crutches and women great with child,_

_Mothers, sobbing over babes, that clung to them and smiled…_

_A mile around the city, the throng stopped up the ways;_

_A fearful sight it was to see, through two long nights and days._

_Now, from the rock Tarpeian, could the wan burghers spy,_

_The line of blazing villages, red in the midnight sky._

_The Fathers, in the Senate, now sat all night and day,_

_For every hour some horseman came with tidings of dismay…_

Horatius at the Bridge, _Macauley_

* * *

The Native Californian uprising across Calfree was driven swiftly out of San Francisco by both the Imperial Marines and the MPA. Even down the peninsular around silent Colma, Norton's Army had been moulded by Orion into a capable force, extending protection for miles. In Sacramento, however, the National Guard was not deployed. Chico was the Native Californian's stronghold, where the police even assisted them in hanging or burning all metas who lost any time fleeing to Sacramento or Redding. But they found nowhere to flee to; Native Californian bands controlled the freeways. The humans finally killed them when they could run no more, mocking their emptied weakness and terror.

The Agricorp security forces couldn't even protect their own convoys; almost as many tankers were blown off the road and seized as refugee parties were encircled and massacred. The only law across the valley, as always, was the Rangers.

Persi was a simple, free-spirited valley ork, with a knack for machines, who'd always been proud of her smart sister with a thriving talismonger's business in Redding. When she got the call and heard what the NCs had done to Hrafna, she punched the wall until the pain drowned out her own screams. Then she pulled on her leather armour, and her Ranger badge. Swung into the cab of her six-wheeled battle rig. Roared down the highway, until her aerial spy-drone pinged two pick-ups full of gunmen, speeding away from a burning hamlet.

_"No shame in waiting for backup, girl!"_ Ranger Ollendorf boomed over Persi's comm, _"Never forgive myself, if the worst happened."_

There was a twinge of fear, that Persi cursed to the deepest drekhole. The Rangers were full of metas and sworn enemies of Humanis–but they did have more dwarfs among them than orks, and a _lot_ more boys than girls. It was everyday patronising bulldrek, it was nothing next to the evil that had marked her sister… but it hurt even more, today. Maybe everything would hurt, until the last monster was dead. She wiped something from her eye, checked her autocannon turrets. Floored her accelerator, as she growled back;

"What do they say down in Texas, chief? One riot. One Ranger."

-0-

Law enforcement in Redding ran to a few elected sheriffs and deputies, who dealt with fistfights or minor shootings, as well as one Lone Star precinct which only handled business or personal contracts for monied SINers. There wasn't a ghetto, but there were poorer streets with more metas, as in any place. Hotspur and Tomas led one of several parties that went out to such streets, the day after Hrafna had been attacked.

She was in the Ripperdoc clinic they'd set up at City Hall. Scarred but alive, conscious but unresponding. Every human in the mob had committed their hearts to race and nation, with blows and kicks–for even an ork to survive such punishment had been incredible. Deputies had recovered the bodies of the ork trucker who'd been shot dead trying to help her, and the elf girl Hrafna had tried to protect.

The blonde NC woman had cut the elf girl's cheeks and lips; no need to spell out UGLY. Thrown her on the fists of her men; but she'd slashed the elf's throat before they succumbed to temptation and defiled themselves. The girl's name had been Lucia; she'd been a seventeen-year old part-time barmaid.

Even such a death might have been easier–Ilsa considered, in the silence of the abyss–than living longer in a brutal world. Susan didn't think so; she met Lucia's parents, told them on her knees that she would fight for Never Again. While Hailey had located a Redding NC lieutenant through his comcalls and had him sniped in front of his men, earlier that morning.

She hadn't yet located the blonde ringleader, one Amy Noble; the NCs also had tough deckers. This woman was currently informing Redding _via_ the net and the radio that trogs had beaten and raped her when she'd been fifteen–but neither that nor anything else would stop her cleansing the world of their evil. Hailey, Sarah, Susan and Ilsa had all quietly resolved to kill her, whether she was lying or not.

_"Our inhuman enemies, poised to flood from the valley into this peaceful town, will find no welcome while I draw breath. Come elf, ork, troll; parasite, rapist, monster! I swear upon my sword this oath, Calfree and I stay human both! To all who say that Calfree is a failed state, to our own leaders who will not defend our borders from invasion, our cities from monstrous terrorists, or even our homes from their cruelty…to all who call us ignorant and powerless, the ones bloated with the profits of selling OUR COUNTRY to Jap gangsters and elvish whores, I say, we will show you our strength!"_

Hailey was frantically getting a counter message onto the Net; who Redding's Defenders were and who were her enemies. But the quickest way to show what you were about was doing it; visible protection.

"It's too quiet." Tomas growled, gazing over the empty streets, "Feels like Redding should be howling out, today."

Hotspur could already sense the gunman drawing a bead on him, from a window on the next block. He guessed that another NC sniper was targeting Tomas, correctly...

Sarah, leading another patrol across the town, didn't sense the sights on her–but Ilsa was by her side, and her Watcher spirits already had. Archangel, the Runners' sniper, headshot the NC gunman from a crumbling church spire above them. Smoothly took out a second gunman in another window. The third one got off one shot, but it took more than a bullet to stop an angry troll. Sarah marched on.

Kali's handpicked Runner, Angel 'Archangel' Florez, had seen his parents gunned down by Aztlan agents for opposing the El Salvador annexation when he'd been twelve. He had curly black hair, and a heart-stealing Latino smile that didn't change a bit when he killed something. Although these were the first kills for some time he'd actually felt good about.

The snipers targeting Hotspur's party had come with Invisibility spells from an NC support mage, and ready to spray more bullets than the chief race-traitor could dodge. Hotspur had overwatch from Will Casper, however, Hawk shaman and sniper. Nothing could hide from a hawk spirit soaring above the battlefield. The scrawny dwarf's dead-dull eyes rolled back, as he put three bullets through three sockets from his hide in a tall tree.

Norton had marched out alone to preach forgiveness and forbearance in another quarter. Hotspur had sent a few Redding fighters to tail him–but Norton's blazing six-winged summon spirit, along with his hellhounds, was quite enough to rout the gathering mob. Selene, Kali's quartermaster, was working non-stop to link up with the Redding militias and sheriffs. Hailey had been torn between using the Matrix to expose the NCs' plans or track their bases and leaders. To mobilise Redding, or take down the lies about metahuman atrocities that were flooding the Net...before Anya Kotto, digital ork, had rested a virtual hand on her avatar's flank.

_"Chummer. You came. So wiz!"_

_"To fight these Humanis dreks? Always. Deal with the message, girl genius, make it good. I'm going to shut down some fascists. If they won't stop trying to kill my people, then I'm never going to stop fighting."_

-0-

"…can't shoot every human in Redding who just doesn't much care for metas." Sweat rolled down the sheriff's dark, weathered face, as he met Hotspur's eyes across the street, "On this border, shouldn't be surprised if we never trust an elf. Or if men who say they've come to fight the Tir look safer to some…than angry metas and Corp mercs, shooting folk in the streets. I know we can't fight you, or the NCs, but I know this is a day for men to stand up and speak. What do you mean to do in this town?"

Hotspur smiled pleasantly and wondered how many Badges he'd cut down, up to now. Could an outlaw guide a city's people out of anarchy? _This_ city, now, perhaps…but he wasn't prepared to make nice, or talk the Badge's language, when people had died.

"My wife and her chummers want to find everyone who was in that bar, and probably kill them. _Women_, you know? The kids with sniper rifles back there want to shoot NC recruits in their homes, then burn them–that's how the Azzies do it in Columbia, and Tir runs the same playbook. Chip truth. It's just me and him–" He gestured to Tomas, "–your new best friends, stood in the way of all that. The NCs are looting human homes and killing race traitors right now, all through the valley. They turned your people who just _didn't care for metas_ into murderers!"

"Guess you know about murder. The guys in that bar, I'd known some since they were kids." The sheriff's voice cracked; his fists clenched down at his sides, "They ain't monsters, they weren't…but the elf and the ork weren't even bad girls. What the frag can you do against that brainwashing_ sickness_? Frag you, what can we do–!"

"Save our city, Frank!" Tomas burst out, stepping past Hotspur, "The NC are _outsiders_, crawling up from Chico. Spreading their lies, sucking desperate folk in– but since '36 we've lived in peace here, human and meta! We all knew we'd need to stand together against Tir one day, and now this is the day for men to stand up and fight! Everyone knows you love this city. Tell them what we're doing, and they'll listen! We'll run the NC out of town, and face Tir Taingire with a hardened people's army."

"Frag, I can see it already. Well, I didn't take this job for the money. I'll do what I can."

After they'd shaken hands with Sheriff Frank Olsen, Hotspur put it to Tomas that he would do better with Selene's job of connecting their work with Redding's community. He _was_ their link to Redding's community, not someone they could afford to lose.

"…you know what I thought, when I saw Hrafna? That if Redding unites against the fraggers that did this, we could come out stronger…frag me, from an ork girl scarred and that little elf dead! I've thought about war, with the Tir, since I was _knee-high_, but frag…I never thought I'd think that drek. I need to be here at the front, or I'm no leader, I'm drek. You understand…? Guess you know about blood and drek."

"Something like. I wanted to be a Runner, not lead an army, or a crusade. Last time I tried was an incredible frag up, but it seems like I get to try again. I can tell you there's drek on every path ahead, and it's only going to get thicker."

There were others on the streets who called the Runners killers and megacorp lackies–Hotspur applauded their courage–but more who asked where to sign up, to keep Humanis out of Redding. Local community leaders, even churches, were already preparing food, shelter and hope for the coming metahuman refugees. They could also anticipate that they'd need protection.

And orks, trolls and dwarves, ranging from small-time toughs to homeowners with handguns, had turned out to protect their neighbourhoods at a minutes' notice. They had little to say in words, but their eyes and iron-tense shoulder spoke resolution and endurance. Ilsa, as she passed, could predict that the metas would need both.

-0-

When night fell, two armoured vans sped and screeched. Reddingites with fresh-shaven heads and N.C. daubed on their shirts, struck at the gathered metas with firebombs and assault rifles. The metas scrambled for any cover of a wall or car; many of them had known nothing of real, bowel-wrenching combat, but within sight of their homes very few of them ran. More stood and fired back. Burnt to the bone, or went down.

If the NCs had slot and run after their first devastating volley, they would have won–but their will was to root out every stubborn cockroach. A neighbour hidden under her kitchen table, however, had already called the number that Hailey had sent to every comm in Redding.

A Bulldog van smashed into the NC vehicle's side. Fighter dived out, hit the street, came up swinging–a gunman shattered against the asphalt like a sack of plates. Her eyes were savage, in the light of a burning storefront.

Still, they were too few to be everywhere. Anya seized every security cam in Redding, but that wasn't so many. Recruits, humans and many metas, kept coming steady over the coming days; the Runners made sure they had a gun, explained basically 'rules of engagement' and 'staying alive in a gunfight'. Then they sent them all over the city, and the Reddingites' work simply amazed them.

But then another elf family were shot dead in their outlying cabin. Humans who'd posted online about volunteering at City Hall were attacked. Two survivors had been beaten and raped; it was hard for Fighter to sit with them and tell them to keep fighting, when she felt she'd failed them. When she only wanted to crush the monsters who'd done this to a paste...but she had to sit and weep and wait so they could live on and fight, as she had.

The NC deckers made sure that the whole city heard of the twitchy dwarf volunteer, who'd shot an unarmed teen screaming _Halfer scum_ at her in the street. Anya dug up that the kid had logged hours on Humanis websites, but Susan, again, chose the path of going to his parents on her knees.

"I trained that woman to kill. As much as I could, in less than a week. I need to do better, for your city…I'm so sorry for what happened to your boy."

By the week's end, the two most 'anti-Tir' of Redding's small self-defence groups had folded into the Native Californians. The other four had aligned with the Redding Defence Force, and Anya had located all NC officers for assassination, bar Amy Noble. The NC's only option short of flight was to send every man with a gun to City Hall that night, calling on Redding's people to kick out the metas and shadowscum. Even their own marching recruits, however, knew the side Redding had already taken.

"How the Tir elves must be laughing at us, my friends!" Norton called, striding out with remarkable vigour to meet the mob, "Their forces may be crossing our border even as we stand here! Carry your arms in a better cause. For Calfree's people, not against them."

The NC recruits were ready to flee when Ilsa's fireball burst overhead, and they did–but Noble had planned for that. The hardcore of NC fighters from Chico had set an ambush in the street behind the march. They shot down their fleeing comrades in the crossfire as Sarah stumbled under three bullets. Ilsa quickly Healed her, as she pulled her chummers back with a magically amplified shout.

Under Casper and Archangel's sniper fire, the NC fighters slot and ran, leaving scattered bodies and total defeat. Fighter still whispered to Hotspur, it felt more like they'd slaughtered Redding's people than saved them.

"We're not done, angel. Neither are they."

-0-

There were a few survivors for the sheriffs to deal with–Harry talked with all of them first. And broke one man's jaw, who asked–hadn't he got off on watching trog gangers rape his wife? Wasn't that why he was selling Redding to the defilers?

All of three of the prisoners were from Redding; one had been a trainee forester, one more had occasionally worked in a garage. With the incredible corruption in Sacramento, there were few jobs and less hope across Calfree. College grads in other cities could fight for Corp wageslave slots, but not in Redding.

Growing up in a city without change or action, Harry could imagine their frustration–but never how they'd been seized with the idea of killing metahuman scum. A week's confinement in an NC chapter house, all the lies NC could baptise them in…still needed a flaw in the soul, before monsters called the women they raped trog-loving whores.

One nineteen-year old NC fighter had heard Hrafna's groans and Lucia's screaming in his head, every night for a week. Harry sat down and told him from his own heart; sometimes men did things they did regret. The boy wept like a child, begged Harry to kill him. Or let him tell everyone, the NC were murdering liars. He could fight the Tir daisy-eaters, with Redding's Defenders. Show the world it was never too late to change…

Lucia's parents were volunteering at City Hall, preparing meals and organising the patrol schedule. They had the distant manner of people who had to keep working to stay sane.

Susan was sitting in the basement with Hrafna; a heavy bandage obscured the carving on her brow. The young shaman was hunched over a datatablet with a determined expression.

"Surgery for these fragging scars means nyuyen," She explained, "Frag knows when I'll have the guts to go outside again…I built up my magic business face to face, but now it seems like I'll have to learn Matrix. I mean, I always knew my magic isn't strong, I could never fight or protect…but aren't there kinds of strength?"

Susan hugged her and said that there were, _there were_. She sat with Hrafna until another volunteer came; leaving her alone meant alone with her nightmare.

Susan sat down with Harry and heaved sobs into his neck. He had to cling to her a long time.

"I should kill every one of them. If it had been you…"

"…I want to kill them. Even for breathing in the same building as that girl's mother and father…! But we can't kill them all."

"Not if we want to save this city. There has to be a way back for the NCs that isn't in a bodybag."

"You always find a way. My love, my love…"

The young NC made a full confession to the sheriffs and went quietly to jail. As meekly and manfully, perhaps, as he had gone to the Native Californians.

-0-

Hand in hand, Harry and Susan went back up to City Hall, which looked more like a refugee camp than a military base. Their office was full of Hailey's prized tech. The main hall had a few gun racks and some screw-together bunk beds, for the few recruits onsite. The space between was full of elf, ork, dwarf and troll families, or survivors of families, with a hundred needs and a thousand stories.

There were human Amindians, and magic-users–the NCs weren't even killing magic-users yet, unlike Humanis, but the refugees naturally hadn't wanted to wait. Some of them had joined Redding's Defenders, but courage for most was simply stepping out to look for a job and a squat, in these violent days.

Archangel was deep in conversation with a stunning Hispanic elf lady, who wore a ripped and dust-marked designer suit. Some tiny dwarf children were climbing over Bummer, Lazarus and Pup, unafraid of dogs who could've made them a mouthful.

"We can run either a soup kitchen, _or_ an army." Selene shook her head, "They'll have to go."

"When we have enough fighters to protect their new homes," Ilsa responded, with curious detachment, "How many warm, armed bodies do we really have?"

"A few hundred recruits on paper, but they're mostly still at home, coming in for a few shifts a week." Selene informed her, "We've started turning recruits away– we can't even feed or organise the ones we have. Good news time; I've sorted out that contract for security on Agricorp convoys through the Central Valley. It only needs your sign off."

"Security, with our kids?" Harry moved in quickly, with Susan almost ahead of him, "Selene, they signed up for _Redding_. Most of them had to bring their own guns. They're not security trained."

"I'm aware. However, the NCs through the Valley are cutting off supplies and water shipments to both Redding and the farmlands. The Rangers are too few. Defending Redding from impoverishment, getting resources from the Corps to build a real army–means taking the fight to the Valley."

"It means people who trusted us dying for the Corps."

"It's our decision–though not really a choice, I fear." Ilsa sighed, but her gaze was iron, "When you've got a tiger by the tail, you can't let go."

An hour after the Runners signed, the City Hall's windows shook–the first NC nail bomb had gone off in a Stuffer Shack down the block. It already seemed like a month, not a week, since they'd come to Redding–but Harry and Susan couldn't see themselves leaving her.

-0-

**Central Valley, March 2053, one month later**

"…so, Fighter and Wizard." Susan grinned at Ilsa across the gulley, "Running the Shadows again. It's been too long."

"I recall I worked rather well…with your husband, saving you from Shavarus. I trust we'll at least get through this with our lives, again."

"_Ooo_, if I don't punch you out myself!"

"Feeling a little frustration, Mrs Fawkes?"

"_Yes!_ I need my man every morning, I need his _lurve_…but frag it, I couldn't just stay at home. I guess we needed a break, and an epic reunion."

"Tragically, Hotspur remains better placed in Redding than on this mission. Also, reunions are properly placed at the war's conclusion."

_"Feel like joining in this charming banter, chummer?"_ Anya growled to Sarah; the custom Guardian hover-drone she was 'riding' butted the troll's arm in solidarity. Susan scowled, even if she felt shame.

"I…think it's good you love each other, even in this drek world," Under tusky harshness, somehow, Sarah's voice was soft, "Can't see myself with a man, like that, ever…but I still want it."

The three women were huddled together, waiting for their fifth _nakama_. Ahead of them, the junkyard sprawled in the setting sun; a bloodied steel graveyard that smelt like drek, death and afterbirth from downwind. A fitting rathole for the Native Californians–and finally, they were poised to purge it.

For over a month, the Runners had fought a guerrilla war from the wrong end. In Redding, far from Chico, the Human Supremacists were still broken and not destroyed. But across the central valley the NCs were smoke; nowhere and everywhere. Their farmboy conscripts knew the country, their supply of missiles and explosives was unflagging, and a fanatic could evoke more terror with a two-nyuyen knife. Ilsa and Susan had seen the net-vids of their own Redding recruits, taken in ambushes on Corp convoys. Broken into confessing every crime the NCs desired before their executions on live-stream.

Ilsa had watched the vids all through and her silence had worried Susan for weeks. She herself had thrown all her rage into training the recruits that had never stopped coming. Until she'd almost killed an ork volunteer in a grappling lesson gone wrong.

She'd longed with all her passion to make victims into fighters, make them strong and unafraid; her failures had struck to her heart. You couldn't hold back with killing, that was all she knew…painfully cut off from the earnest volunteers all around her, she'd dumped the leadership of Redding onto Harry, and left a while to do more killing.

They'd turned back ambushes, made better plans. Ilsa had stage-managed some false convoys, ambushes of their own; they had seen a lot of dead NCs, in the last month. So, the attack last week–Redding fighters, who'd gone from victims to hardened troops within a month, mown down like mere flesh–had hit their courage hard again. Susan didn't know if she could've stood up and told their poor kids to fight on, without Sarah's indomitable stand at her side.

The Agricorps had come through with supplies, weapons and even advisors, who'd run tankers through the Valley bandits for years. Metas and humans from ravaged settlements kept coming to join Redding's Defenders–some even wildly maintaining that Fighter and Hotspur might push Tir Taingire back to the Oregon border, when the NCs were finished.

Even Ilsa and Anya's contacts in the People's University had misdirected arms shipments, meant for the Imperial Marines in 'Frisco, to Redding and Colma. The ultimate purpose of the Runners' present road trip was travelling down to Colma and bringing Norton's Army back with them to Redding. Once they'd cleared their way, by finally taking out the largest NC base outside Chico.

For years past, a Humanis chapter had occupied the junkyard, setting bombs in metahuman farms and poisoning their fields into barrenness. The place was filled with hidden paths and hiding places, as well as the poisonous rust-shards the NCs packed their bombs with. Thinking of the wounds she'd seen on her chummers, and the littlest refugees in Redding, made Fighter's eyes leak and her fists ache. Their old Ranger chummers, Ollendorf and Ballou, would throw a net of drones around the perimeter–but Susan was done watching brave kids die. Five veteran Runners, striking fast, could take a scrap-metal fortress.

"Did the fraggers even think they had a chance?" She muttered, "Against the metas, the Marines and the Tir, all they could ever do was kill and torture helpless people. That _drekhead_, Ork Slayer, how did he get so many fraggers to fight like this? For nothing but death!"

_"Could be he's got an angle."_ Anya offered, _"We don't know where they got their guns, if it was never Saito."_

"For some, power is its own reward; not rule or victory, only the stamping boot." Ilsa stared wearily away at nothing, "Followers who forget they had a choice; leaders who never gaze back on their own abyss of monstrosity. It _is_ a fearful thing to face."

_"Dr Tresckow?"_ Anya was speaking only to Ilsa, now, _"Susan is Susan, I'm only in this until the NC drekheads are out, but you're the smart one. Why did you leave Halferville, take this job? Leave that guy you loved, in a way, and tie yourself to this runaway train?"_

The young mage, who had sacrificed Anya's meat body and more lives than she could recall, drew her cloak around and bowed her head. She'd done it for revenge, that had seemed so meaningless when she'd found the PU and her Henry–but that life had grown unreal even as she'd lived it, then sickened and died. She was a Shadowrunner; she burnt sacrifices and healed fresh wounds with all her wit and strength. The shadows were where she belonged. Planning, killing and _dying, _one day …

"…Ilsa? _Smile_. We've endured the past. You deserve a future."

Susan was gazing past her chummer, at a figure in dark armour, moving swiftly through the dusk. Their fifth crew member–Paladin–looked with astonishing calm into Ilsa's face. She gazed up into his blue eyes without flinching.

"_Ilsa_. Are you well?"

"Actually, I have no idea. _David_. Of all the wars, in all the world, you could have walked into..."

"To protect innocent lives from murderers. With or without Ms Lei's invitation, I would have joined you in the Shadows for this. I would have come to Redding, but I was needed here in the Valley."

"Quite understandable. I incidentally heard of you destroying that vampire coven in Los Angeles; _gut gemacht_."

Ilsa then gave Susan an icy look, which she turned from with all the pride she could muster. Harry had suggested over a month ago that mixing war with romantic meddling was a dubious idea. She would've told him not to be stupid, if he'd been wrong, so she'd batted her eyes at him until he'd let it pass.

Trying to give what she and Harry had won to her best friend, and the man who was turning from her eyes to watch their perimeter–while people were being killed, raped and crushed by despair from Redding to San Francisco–was it unforgivable? Didn't need they need to laugh and love, even as they fought, when all the death in the world wouldn't bring back one girl's life?

Sarah was looking away from Susan too, which left her with Ilsa. Without meeting each other's eyes, the two women inched a little closer together.

-0-

It turned out that Paladin hadn't come alone. He'd been leading a gaunt woman with empty eyes, and limbs it seemed it touch would snap, buried under a mass of copper hair. Paladin had found her kneeling in the dust among a few skinheaded bodies. She had the smell of the junkyard on her; the marks of horrors and years.

Sarah knelt with her, knowing there was nothing she could say. Susan gently gave the woman some water, told her she was safe, and what was her name?

"…Tabitha. Thank you, child." The woman's heavy gaze bore past Susan, to Ilsa's strangely unsettled eyes, "They hurt…the ones who are not like them. The ones who fill this land, and fill it with violence. Why do they do so?"

"Metas and magic users, metas and Japanese, Jews and chimneysweeps…" Ilsa's voice was _very_ strangely distracted, now, "Any hate will do. They only seek power, or the illusion of it."

"…I think they're afraid of us." Sarah spoke quietly, "When you don't believe you have any strength, fear can make you do terrible things for a lie."

Tabitha turned to Susan. Hollow like a well, her gaze almost seemed hypnotic.

"Are the other lands like this one? Is there violence, poisoned earth, hatred between the races?"

"…some places are worse. But I still think the world is better."

"They say that war has come and is coming. What does that mean?"

"That we have to fight for the ones who can't. Whoever comes against us, we will not give up."

"So, many more people will die, and without an end. Let the circle remain all-broken. Sea, give up your dead, and drown the world…"

Tabitha looked away at no one; Susan felt a rush of pity. Scraps of wisdom and strength, scavenged from the wreck of insanity. She was a little like Norton, only more pitiful–but Ilsa's expression still had a hint of terror.

"Who _are_ you–?"

"One who will not interfere with your purposes, here. If I meet with you again…I will be more myself."

Then she vanished without a sound. A raven flapped off into the dusk before the Runners' eyes.

_"Hoi, _omaes_?"_ Anya chiming in, _"What the frag just happened?"_

"Ilsa," Paladin's voice barely remained level, "Her Aura…?"

"–could not be seen. Scarcely any metahuman magic can hide an Aura, and I sensed a great deal that was hidden. Madness can alter magical powers dangerously…I must commend your chivalry and courage again, Paladin, but a little more caution may be desirable."

Susan kicked herself for not checking Tabitha's Aura. The Astral of _El Infierno_, and even her ex-ghoul-nest Valley home, had been so hideously toxic that she'd got used to keeping her third eye shut. She looked up at her chummers, though, and spoke firmly.

"That woman felt like something special. Harry was always saying, shadowrunners can even change the world–and times like these, we've got to. If we don't know what that woman meant, or what she means, we know what we came here to do. Make some changes for those NC fraggers, and all their victims across Calfree, when we take that base and kill them."

Sarah answered with a hard nod. Ilsa took a deep breath, smoothed her hair and checked her equipment. Paladin didn't look happy about No Quarter, but he'd seen teenage NC conscripts torture and rape; young minds trapped with all-corrupting ideas very rarely came back. They were going in too few and too fast for prisoners; that was the shadowrunner way.

-0-

Sarah wouldn't be dissuaded from taking point. Her shoulders straightened, her eyes grew bright, as she put a burst from her Czech Semopal rifle into a sentry. Paladin shot another guard through the temple, and quickly finished Sarah's still-writhing target. Fighter had raced in and kicked two more gunmen down, against the immobile van that blocked the side gate.

Sarah charged past; summoned her Ki as she dropped and gripped. Roared out, and the van crashed onto its side. Ilsa, covering the adepts with a flamestrike glowing in her palm. Anya veered off to cover the perimeter with Ollendorf and Ballou's drones, messaging the Rangers that it was game on.

_"We're in the air, sweetheart!"_ Ollendorf cheerfully called back, _"Ready to whack the rats that run. Don't get too close to those gun platforms, near the centre–but you know why no NCs are decent riggers? Drones need love and they ain't got none, the fragging animals…"_

Ilsa focused on the path and the mission. Sarah was pounding on, between high walls of heaped scrap metal. Susan was right behind her. Paladin, guarding her back; he moved with the deliberate stance and awareness of a veteran warrior. He reassured her, maddeningly so…it was wonderous and appalling how he hadn't changed in the least.

Sarah didn't stop at the first corner. Fighter had to seize her jacket, heave her back, as the bullet-saw of a Stoner Ares MMG tore the air. The NCs had crates of them. Shadowrunners _ran_ from machine guns–but they weren't ordinary Runners, by any stretch.

"Sarah! Ilsa! Cover me!"

Quick and easy as a stolen kiss, Ilsa threw her Haste spell. Around the corner, her flamewall roared up. The Stoner Ares kept throwing bullets through the fiery screen; machine guns didn't have to aim. But Fighter was tumbling over the flames, and the bullets, into a crouch half-way up the side of a junkdrift. Stoners had more accuracy than spread; she'd been warned never to bait-and-switch an Ultramax HMG's lead-wall, but just charge it.

As the bullet spray swung towards Fighter, Ilsa stepped out, throwing her fireball. Sarah flung a grenade at figures stumbling from the blast–adepts or cyborgs could throw back grenades, so you threw magic first. A few screaming skinheads still emptied their guns, as Sarah thundered in. Bullets whipped past Fighter as she ran sideways along the wall. Stumbling once on loose rebar, before she dropped, spun and kicked to shatter a jaw. Sarah pulped a skull with one punch, and the way was swiftly cleared.

"_Shifu_…I've taken bullets before." Sarah growled, "I could've shielded you. I've learnt Pain Resistance and I _won't_ die here!"

"Don't bullets from those hateful dreks hurt your spirit? You're strong but you're not our shield. You're our chummer."

"No. That's why I've got to take the bullets. I can take them! It's not bullets that hurt me. If I could ever be your chummer, I need to fight!"

"If Ms Lei is your teacher, listen to her," Paladin broke in, "More can come of your life than you imagine now. I cannot know how you, hurt, but please, treasure your life."

Even the haste and brazenness of his words, as he never stopped watching their backs, well expressed his conviction. Sarah hung her head and moved further into the junkyard, more slowly.

They'd gotten a route to the nerve centre out of an NC prisoner. The tunnels of packed trash, dripping with dark waste, threw up enemies in their faces as they ran. A sudden turn or hidden passage, shadowed by the roof of camo-netting, spat out tattooed thugs swinging machetes. Through darkness and adrenaline, Fighter only saw weapons and snarling teeth. One of them hacked Ilsa in the leg, but Paladin darted in, took the next blow on his arm, as Sarah smashed a skull with her rifle stock.

There were tripwires leading to nailbombs, buried in heaps of scrap, which Ilsa even had to get down and disarm when they couldn't get past. Narrow passages, and the unit of NC gunmen who'd gotten behind them, catching up…Paladin was already poised. The first NCs whose Colt M23s appeared behind fell prey to his Ares Alpha. He aimed through the darkness at the faint gleam of shaved heads.

"Trog-lovers! Shadowscum!" Somebody shouted, "What the frag are you doing for Calfree?"

Ilsa called up a flame-licked spirit. At her command, it floated high enough to blast the unseen NC squad in their rear with a fireball. Before a heavy machine gun sounded and it burst in mid-air.

"Raised firing platforms, for drone defence," Ilsa noted, finishing with the tripwire, "Don't walk in the centre of the path; don't hug the walls to hard and hit a booby trap."

A sniper on a junkheap put a bullet in Sarah's arm. She was too big to hug the walls; they could only keep morning.

Ilsa was sending out Watcher spirits ahead of them, but there was evidently an NC mage or shaman out there, since fewer were coming back. They had little warning of the machine gun nest ahead, that they had to keep moving into–then it was a four-way junction, _two_ Stoner Ares a long way back, and the magic-user. Ilsa had to counter the Slow spell that would have sealed Susan's bullet-ridden death–even as Paladin shoved her prone. As Fighter and Sarah started to run, with bullets thrumming round their heads.

No time for tricks. Brave men had charged machine gun nests with one grenade since their invention, and not all of them died. Sarah poured Ki through her pillar-thick legs and floored the distance. Fighter wove a tight zig-zag path, kicked off a wall, and flew towards the second MG like a hawk. She couldn't dodge, fast as she ran, her life was nothing but luck–but she couldn't consider that. Only that she'd rather do this a hundred times than tell a hundred men and women to charge machine guns, like a gutless, poisonous Corper.

Her frag grenades fragged the gunner to bits, before he could knock them away. Sarah roared as two heavy bullets hit her, but she got her grenade away. Paladin covered her with burst-fire, as Ilsa sent her a Healing spell and then slung a fireball. Fighter corkscrewed two kicks into riflemen, rolled under a shotgun blast and punched out a third. She was bleeding–and a stinking green mist was rising above her knees.

Ilsa stared at the NC shaman. He had more tattoos, but his leathers were no different from the gunmen. To racist fanatics, magic was another tool for killing. Their shaman was screaming about the metas raping, polluting, _poisoning_ Calfree…

…once again, Ilsa thought, as the toxic spirit congealed into existence above them, Nazis created a monster without to turn their eyes from the monster within.

The spirit's head was an eyeless, bird-like skull. Pale pustules covered its wings and rat's body. Grass sprang up where Norton's nature spirits walked; the toxic spirit splashed through a midden.

Ilsa threw a powerful flamestrike, as the shaman whipped up the cloud of poison gas to towering hights. The flames roared past the spirit; it leapt through the fumes without pause. One solid hit would destory it, but it had no concern except getting to Sarah. She raised her fists, though Ilsa knew it only had to touch her–

Paladin was about to run, to push her out the way. Ilsa recalled the strength he had shown in Berlin, dragging a wounded troll to safety who she had murdered the next day…she couldn't think why, but she realised she had seized Paladin's wrist. He could've broken her grip in an instant, but he was staring, shocked, into her eyes.

It was Fighter who charged, breath held firm as iron. She stepped a side kick into the toxic spirit– which flowed up her leg, around her body, like a demon's grip. Susan gasped in a lungful of the gas, and fell down, twitching.

-0-

It was hard to tell who'd finished the toxic shaman, especially from what was left. As the gas dispersed, the NCs sprung a desperate counterstrike with all their remaining forces. The NC leaders, mages and bodyguards charged from their central base ahead of the Runners, while their surviving troops came from the other side. Ilsa's first spells, with a snap of fingers, were flamewalls behind their foes so that they could not run.

Sarah's hellish, heart-broken battle cry drowned out the roar of fireballs–though not the screams, as more vicious flamestrikes charred flesh from bone. Tears flew from Sarah's eyes, as she sidestepped a burst of acid like a 200 kilo dancer–she'd wanted to be a dancer, once. Tears mixed with blood splatter as she struck and struck. Braced on one knee, then rolling aside from counterfire, Paladin grimly shot through smooth heads until they all fell down.

It was very quick and messy. Sarah finally saw that the human under her foot couldn't be older than fifteen. He had the Californian bear crudely tattooed on his cheek, and two fingers pressing his bullet-slashed carotid. His eyes were more helpless than anything she'd seen, even as he called her a trog.

She wouldn't hate him. He probably knew nothing else to say. She asked if he wanted to go; he nodded carefully. She unshipped her rifle, took a minute. Gave the quick death he might have deserved, and collapsed like a mountain by his side.

Ilsa wouldn't move away from Susan. She was still out cold, her aura looked fearfully darkened, almost _ragged_, but she was alive.

Paladin and Anya had to forge on to the centre. They found battered and hollow-eyed metahuman prisoners, and far more former prisoners, heaped up on their way to a pit. Paladin bowed his head and prayed to God they might be free now, at peace. A few of the survivors prayed with him.

Anya hovered over undestroyed computing devices she'd found, waiting impatiently for the big human meatshield to collect them. She considered that gangsters or soldiers would have brought comfort women to the base where their mission had tied them together, and some Humanis chapters worked like that. Conversely, it seemed the Native Californians were a pure and dedicated family–it was the duty of the weaker conscripts, male and female, to service their brothers.

"Can't we do anything to save them?" Sarah whispered to Ilsa, even as she held Susan's limp hand between her finger and thumb, "Even if they're monsters, even if all of them are…won't we be monsters if we don't try?"

Ilsa's eyes were a very dark green, in the gloom; Sarah flinched from their depths.

"There are wild monsters and tame ones. Monsters that the humble, ordinary people need. A monster is a monster, damned to eternity…but if you can ask, you have some time left."


	18. Lost in the Fire

_And if the night is burning, I will cover my eyes_

_For if the dark returns, then my brothers will die_

_And as the sky is falling down, it crashed into this lonely town_

_And with that shadow upon the ground, I hear my people screaming out._

_Now I see fire, inside the mountains_

_I see fire, burning the trees_

_I see fire, hollowing souls_

_I see fire, blood in the breeze._

–I See Fire, _Ed Sheeran_

* * *

The Runners had driven half-way across the plains and broken highways of Calfree, to within sight of the city they couldn't return to. Colonel Saito was no more likely to forget the Armoury fight and Shavarus' madness than they themselves were. Sarah, born in the Mission, stared through the Bulldog's plate-glass window at the distant bridge over the bay.

"What became of Shavarus?" Ilsa asked Anya, by way of semi-idle road trip conversation.

_"Seems he got some big vision; that the one chosen race who deserved his shining tomorrow were the trolls. He'd been hating on elves since the Armoury fight, though, seeing as the Tir left him hanging. Anyway, he kicked all the orks and dwarfs out of his little cult, MPA put him on their hitlist, and that mad fragger ain't been heard of in months."_

"I had a run-in with his trolls, last year." Sarah got out, "They said Shavarus wanted me brought to him, he wanted to show me I was still _his_. I try not to think of my world like some fragging torture pit, but sometimes…_why?_"

Sarah didn't have much patience with idle chat, and Susan was happy to back her. The human girl weakly gripped Sarah's wrist, shifting her head in the troll's knobbly lap.

The toxic spirit had sunk into Fighter's soul like an oil slick with teeth. Ilsa had managed to knock the thing into a torpor, having reread studies on the Hamburg toxic floods before the junkyard Run. It had still swallowed half of Susan's life and Essence. Only a specialist shaman could conceivably remove it; Ilsa couldn't even assure Fighter she wasn't crippled for life.

To Susan, the idea felt like the end of life. And she felt the polluting spirit on her body; an incubus she was helpless to remove. Taut as wire from her jaws through her shoulders to her eyelids…she could still speak without screaming. Ilsa never failed to be amazed by her.

Susan had insisted they all finish the mission, all the way to Colma. She stared up at Sarah's rough face, framed by her long and very striking raven hair.

"…you got stronger since last time, chummer. Even stronger."

"Sorry my knees aren't soft."

"…soft." Susan muttered, giving Sarah's vast bosom a fist-bump, "Make an amazing Moma. Chip truth. Moms should be tough."

"_Shifu_…Susan. I'm a Runner. I'm _never_ going to have kids. Why do you say drek that like that, when you're so lucky? Why can't I do without you, even now? You've given me so much, but you've taken so much away...why are you always strong…?"

"…you're stronger. You'll find a good man who loves your strength. Oh, _Harry_…"

Sarah averted her face, bitter with frustration, as Susan quivered with her own fearful need. Ilsa and Paladin, who were sharing driving duties, ignored the outburst as carefully as they were ignoring each other's presence. Runner teams thrown together at full tilt, between vans and small safehouses, had to consider each other's privacy where there was none.

Anya's Guardian drone was squatting on the captured NC data tablets, furiously as a faceless hover-drone could furiously squat.

_"I could almost believe, if we released this drek_ _–the NCs fragging agreed to split Calfree with the Tir, for their guns_ _–it wouldn't even kill them for once and all or be worth a frag."_

"Indeed, any supporter who could overlook open murder and torture would say anything can be faked." Ilsa responded, "With the NCs defeated from Redding to San Francisco, however, and their main forward base destroyed, their fighters will seize any excuse to jump ship. And largely return to scattered banditry–but it will no longer be impossible, at least logistically, for Norton's Army to travel to Redding and oppose the real threat from Tir Tairngire."

_"The Agency wiped out Humanis in Calfree just three fragging years ago. For my Kenji, my sweet, strong boy that they _murdered_…two, three years time, they'll be spreading their lies and killing young orks again. FRAG IT! What have I got to do?"_

"Sadly, some problems cannot be solved with killing. So long as the ideas and the conditions remain, that give rise to–"

_"Do you think I enjoyed it? Shooting down those drekheads that ran from the junkyard? _You _would try to kill every NC in Calfree, but I couldn't even start. What have I got to do? To show them metahumans are people! You're human, don't you have anything to say?"_

Ilsa didn't assert her own view that Anya wasn't strictly a metahuman–furthermore, that her free will, cognition and compassion were more significant than her (non)metahumanity. Anya's orkish identity wasn't a thing that the young A.I. would give up in a million years.

"I was too scared to get revenge on hu–on the Japs, when I was alone." Sarah filled the silence, "I can't think you were afraid, Miss Anya."

_"My Dad killed a lot of humans, for what they did to us, but he never got any joy . I never liked killing, but I wasn't gonna in stay in the gutter, and I was a fragging good decker. You know, six months back, I tried outing the Governor's special advisor as Humanis down to his drek, and worse? They waved it all away_ _; Gavin Morgan's still got his job, and Calfree was too busy throwing rocks at trogs to care. I've have kept on raking their muck until it choked them, but SK picked up my trail and I had to dive deep."_

"After the Armoury, you and your dad, Orion, were spending some time apart, right? I can't think that lasted long…what else did you do, Miss Anya?"

It pained Sarah–regrets lodged in her like iron nails–that she hadn't worked more with Anya. Her Year One had worked up from security gigs to milk runs, for the People's University and MPA, with a few good chummers who were either dead or still struggling in Oakland. There had been nothing to interest a full-fledged A.I. Although Anya was a strong ork sister, who should have been her mentor and friend…the whole living-in-cyberspace thing was a damper on chummership.

_"I looked for other A.I. I wrote programs. It was lonely. The Net is vast and infinite; I could make castles of cloud or oceans of chocolate, but what did I want? I dressed a program in algorithms and memories, and the sex was actually incredible…but it wasn't Kenji, it wasn't even a person. That's when I knew I had to delete it, and start looking for a guy_ _–even a girl, you can be anything online_ _–who didn't mind only dating in the Matrix. I actually found someone, but they're sort of not an ork. So, my time apart from dad kind of went on a bit…"_

"Chummer, that's wiz! You found love again." Susan began, "But your dad…Orion wouldn't ever, he wouldn't–?"

_"If you call my dad racist, I'll fry your brain, chummer. You know what humans have done to everyone he loved. You know his vision of the future is orks helping orks. He'd have every right to be angry…but I was more afraid he'd be hurt."_

"Is there anything we can do–?" Paladin's voice was taut, as he drove on, "–to increase the likelihood that this Chieftain of Colma will agree to our proposal? That most or all of his people should transplant themselves across hostile country, to a human city, to kill or be killed by fellow metahuman separatists? You've all met this Orion; I must defer to your judgement."

"Practical as ever, _Herr_ Steiner, in Shadowrunning at least," Ilsa replied, too quickly, "Norton's army will follow Orion, and Orion will do only as he thinks right."

_"Bringing old Norton probably wouldn't have helped much,"_ Anya added, _"Dad's grown the Army so much, a lot of them haven't even met him. Dad armed them, too. It's part of __his dream to build a place like Tir Taingire, for all metahumans. He knows all about Tir's fantastical, fascist, feudal flaws, though… and I hope he'll still listen to me."_

"Anya, your dad would fragging die for you!"

_"Don't mean he always listens. Don't mean I'm not a few other things, like a copy in a box…frag it, I'm sorry, I just wonder sometimes." _

Ilsa broke the silence and changed the subject; at least Orion would certainly pass the NC intelligence they'd captured to the People's University in Berkeley.

"No chance of your old boyfriend helping us, at all?" Susan muttered, "Or his Halferville buddies?"

"The dwarves dug Halferville as their fastness, a refuge from the Marines, the Tir and Calfree's senseless battles. I am grateful that it exists as such, and very grateful that Henry will remain there. You will show him some _verdamnt_ respect." Susan imitated a fragile invalid; even Paladin flinched, "If you want something serious to consider; the Agency's purge of Humanis Policlub in Calfree allowed the Native Californians to get their start, three years ago. Which Prince of Tir Taingire also controlled the Agency, and promised to destroy us if we opposed his plots again?"

The air of irritable tension, that had been seeping through the van, was wiped out by dead silence. The Bulldog roared on, grinding the road to asphalt dust and travelled miles–hacking away the distance, closer to the end. Paladin, squaring his thick shoulders, smiled at Ilsa rather tragically.

"…you knew this, and you went to Redding. We all put on the shirt of Nessus."

The burning poisoned shirt, that General von Tresckow had donned by attempting his Fuhrer's death. The rebel general, the righteous Runner… Ilsa had always felt affinity for her ancestor's convictions. And she had never felt less than a burning passion for the brilliant, beautiful knight whose hand was inches from hers…but it hadn't been enough for them, two years ago. She turned away, adjusted her glasses, and said that it was so.

"I decided that facing death for something hopeless and right was better than wandering the Shadows. I tried to begin another research project. Henry was so much kinder than I deserved…but there simply weren't the same endless possibilities. No one gets out alive, I suppose. I mean, what would you do without me, Susan?"

"Hm, I'd be having magic sex with Harry, in our house that got burnt down." Susan grinned and winked, "Kinda got dragged into this, but it's alright. Me and Harry never turned back from anything if we could help it."

"It would be churlish of me to say…" Paladin gazed on Ilsa as a fallen angel might have gazed, "…that I had any reason to fear death's sting."

"I…I've though death looked better than life, sometimes." Sarah got out, "When I didn't have a path, or chummers to face it with."

_"That's it, girl."_ Came Anya's heart-metal voice, _"This drekky world took all we had, except a few imperfect bonds worth staking our lives for. That's why we're here, with no one's orders but our own. Not a clue where we're going…but frag it, _we are going_."_

The van sped on toward Colma. Where Norton's Army had made their home among the graves, from guns and dreams, which the Runners were going to call on them to leave. Susan admitted that if it turned out that the survivialists, kooky shamans, Kung Fu students, familes and friends she remembered would rather not head north to risk their lives, then she was chill. Only seeing them again would be worth the trip.

Sarah's thoughts held far less hope. Colma had been her home and refuge, she had thought many times of returning; but they all knew she had gone with Shavarus and betrayed them. Shadowrunners could never really go home, unless to each other.

They had planned to prepare with a few hours' sleep, before their return to Colma, before they'd seen the rising line of smoke on the horizon. Then the fires, glaring through the fall of night. Paladin all but drove the gas pedal through the floor.

-0-

Anya hadn't needed to mention that Lofwyr had been hunting her and her father since she'd been born, in a sense. Or that their two years' survival had been cold comfort, against a foe that might wait years while his schemes ripened across the world, then let destruction fall on the instant he chose. Perhaps not only on the lives of the defiant ones.

Susan thought of all the burnt and poisoned farms, the metas and humans slaughtered, to weaken Calfree for conquest–but she thought most of Redding in flames and Harry lost forever.

_"That woman, _Tabitha_, she came up in the NC files."_ Anya chattered on at a desperate pace, _"Not who she is, but the NC had orders to deliver her to Tir. To_ Lofwyr_, bet you nyuyen to nutrisoy. Using cat's paws like that that is his style. There's no way he just would spread his wings and rain down death…"_

An orange fireball swelled through the darkness, bursting in sparks like spores from a mushroom. They caught the scent of sizzling mould and turf on the wind, and burning bodies, as they piled out of the van.

"This is Lofwyr's work. Through his creature, Torphet." Ilsa's voice shocked Susan and Paladin, it was so brittle and quiet.

"_Einen Augenblick_, Ilsa. You told me about Torphet, but how do you know he's controlled by Lofwyr?"

"…I will explain. Give me just a moment."

The gates of Woodlawn were black and broken. Moving closer, the heavy burning smell choked them all. It had been the heart of a free army, a silent town of survivors. Now they could see nothing of Norton's Army among the smoke and shattered graves. Only Anya couldn't smell the burning, or express what she dreaded except by shaking in mid-air.

It seemed to Ilsa, the blasts were not chasing helpless targets across the ground, but pounding out a tireless barrage, for destruction of will. She didn't know for sure. If it were so, could some of the metas have holed up in mausoleums or vaults…? She didn't know. She was sure the firestorms over Dresden or Tokyo had been incomparable, but it was not a great city choking under a cope of flames. It was a humble, innocent town. Paladin would say that she was only a Runner, and this was war, but he didn't know the reason that she was staring once more into hell.

Sarah, seeing the home where she'd dreaded rejection burning, stared in terrible disbelief. It was only instinct, like a mother at a crosswalk, that made her grab Fighter's neck before she could charge through the flames.

"No, no, you…! Get your hands off me!"

Susan fought weakly, shook in the troll adept's grip, and craned her neck towards the ruins with tears in her eyes.

However, several fiery lights from the swarm in the sky above Colma were rapidly detatching. Resolving into ash-black demons–Torphet's Embers, swooping down on the Runners. Paladin ripped up two spirits in mid-flight with his Ares rifle. Ilsa wounded one. Sarah flung herself aside, shielding Fighter, as the fireball blasted a circle on the grass.

_"Dad! DAD! WHERE ARE YOU?"_

Anya blasted through three Embers with her turret, then shot past them into Woodlawn; into the field of fire. Her Guardian was lightly armoured but couldn't use cover or magic healing; hover-drones were glass cannons. There was little her chummers could do, as they dodged the firebolts from Torphet's Embers.

Ilsa dropped behind the van, clutching her side as she Healed. When Paladin gripped her shoulder–still firing off one hand, and a taunt rifle-strap–she didn't move. Sarah emptied her Semopal into the last spirit, and Fighter ended it with a throwing knife.

She was about to rush after Anya, when the pale figure stepped out from a dark row of trees. Bleeding, as ragged as she had looked a few days ago, hundreds of miles northward–her figure still buried in shining copper hair.

-0-

Tabitha dropped to the grass, curling her legs in underneath her. Her hooded eyes were barely open. After more precious seconds, stood stupidly before a disaster, Susan managed to speak.

"…how did you get here? Can you help us?"

"I believe I could."

"Can you destroy those things?" Susan waved her at the cloud of Embers still dropping fireballs on Colma.

"Those spirits, that only act by another's command? Perhaps I would do better to destroy you."

"We're here to save anybody who could be left alive in there!" Fighter screamed at the strange woman, almost collapsing, "We don't know where they are, what's happening or why, and we're just standing round like idiots while people are dying–!"

"Because we do not know the where, what or why." Paladin firmly cut in, "Miss Tabitha. What must we do?"

The weary eyes flicked over all four of them. Tabitha's expression was something like a smile.

"The survivors took refuge beneath the earth, as the old warrior taught them. They remain there, but the fire spirit is at the gates. Too many metahumans never reached the vaults…the Golden Wyrm's servants hold those that live, at Holy Cross."

"…you can't complete a massacre with air power alone." Paladin quickly supplied, "Lofwyr's agents would interrogate anyone who has worked with the MPA or PU, before selling them to the Marines. They will not remain here much long; they must be our priority."

"The families, the children, trapped in the vaults." Susan countered, "We need to save them now."

"The vaults are protected with magical seals," Tabitha murmured, "They will hold…long enough. I will enable you to pass through and bind the master spirit. If your friend, the wizard…will swear to honestly admit the _why_."

Tabitha's eye rolled toward Ilsa. White-faced, the mage nodded.

Then the hostile glow of a binding spell flashed over Tabitha. A bullet cracked into the tree behind her, as she shook it off.

Fighter and Sarah instantly charged the shooter, while Ilsa and Paladin pushed Tabitha down. It flashed through Susan's mind that Tabitha could have probably banished the toxic spirit, that she hadn't, and that she, Fighter, was going to be shot or simply collapse before her fists touched their foes. She wrung out her hobbled strength, sprinting on behind Sarah. As a panicked bullet cracked past them both.

The enemy emerged from the dark as a squad of cloaked spindly figures, resting on a low cemetery wall. Intelligence commandos, not Ghosts–the closest troops on hand to Lofwyr, perhaps, when the Runners or Tabitha had appeared at Colma. With all her hollowed strength, gasping already, Susan rolled as much as vaulted over the wall– scissoring her foot into the squad mage's head. She landed in the dirt. Surged up to wrestle back a rifle butt. Wounded, crippled or terrified of failing the children of Colma, she could never back down.

Sarah's short punches from the hip effectively broke the other three elves, against the ground. Bullets from a flanking Tir fireteam dropped both adepts into cover, wounded, as another flight of Embers detached toward them. Paladin had the same infra-red sight as the elves, however, and even quicker deadly aim. Anya had quickly recovered herself and returned as well, jinking aside from a firebolt and blasting Embers out of the air. It was over quickly and simply, with Susan fighting for breath on her knees.

Sarah pulled out a medkit for her. Tabitha had vanished, but Ilsa confirmed she had told what they needed.

"Torphet's primary manifestation is in the vaults. Once we get to him, I should be able to neutralise him and all his Embers for a considerable time. No, I certainly can...it was I who summoned him."

"Ilsa, do you mean…?" Paladin looked almost as sick, standing at Ilsa's side, as Sarah and Susan crossed back towards them.

"Two years ago, when my little brother was abducted by shadowrunners, I summoned Torphet to destroy them. I succeeded in binding one of the most powerful fire spirits that has ever touched this plane–because I had encountered him once before, because I am a _genius–"_ A bitter breath "–and because _Lofwyr_ supplied a unique fetish. In return for passing him Torphet's reins, once Joachim was safe. I thought…I was a fool. I knew if I went to Redding, opposing Lofwyr once more would earn me the death I deserve."

Staring into the flames, Ilsa's face was too heavy with pain for Susan to face. Then Sarah stepped up and heavily spat in the young mage's face.

Paladin pushed Ilsa behind him, his gun half-raised. Susan desperately stood before Sarah.

"It was her brother…"

"This place was my home. My people. You human _witch_."

_"Seconded, sister,"_ Anya grated, _"But for frag's sake, we need to get rolling."_

Ilsa mopped at her glasses as they ran. Susan didn't know what she could've said, if there'd been any time.

-0-

Dispersed across miles of graveyard on a hastily ordered mission, the Tir commandos failed to concentrate their forces against the Runner's sudden offensive. It further seemed that Torphet's single will, split across a host of fiery bodies and characteristically hellbent of burning out the Colma survivors, could not simply send down his whole army of Embers on their heads at once. The fighting across Colma, to Holy Cross cemetery and back, could only be called scrappy, vicious and survivable. The Runner couldn't know that going in, but they couldn't turn back–even if that meant dying on a side-quest to save hundreds of innocent metahumans.

Susan was almost sure that Harry would keep on the good fight, if she didn't make it. The thought was painful, but unexpectedly lightening.

The Tir officers, mercifully, were still interrogating their metahuman prisoners within a burnt-out church surrounded by sentries. Without a word, Ilsa summoned a fire spirit of her own–Susan managed to hold Sarah back, as the sentries mistook the summon for one of Torphet's Embers. They were burnt down, or shot. Paladin and Sarah crashed through the church's half-broken wall, firing without pause.

One of the elves got a combat knife to a hostage. Scorpion-like, he saw Sarah already squeezing the trigger, and slashed the dwarf's neck before she shot him. As Ilsa barely managed to Heal the wound in time–and herself collapsed beside the comatose dwarf, from mana-drain–Sarah stumbled out to weep and throw up.

Susan didn't recognize any of the prisoners–Norton's Army had grown under Orion, since her time in Colma–but all of them were quaking with fury or grief for their home. A Colma elf had been shot dead in the church, after the Tir had skilfully beaten the _goronagit_ traitor bloody. The Runners had seen more dead on the paths and among the graves. Fighters or their families, shot or burnt. They'd smelt the ones there was little left of to see.

"When the frag does it stop being like this?" Sarah moaned, as Susan rubbed her back, "When do these things stop, when does it stop…?"

"Never stops being scary, chummer. Feeling weak never stops, no matter how many fraggers you kill or lives you save. But we're not what was done to us. We're novahot. You're a woman who saves, like you just did. Frag's sake, you showed up your _shifu_."

Susan rested on the floor by Ilsa, exhausted without even fighting, and quipped that this had been a very drekky road trip for them both.

"…Susan, I had a choice. Better ways to save my brother, but I wanted to bind a mightier fire spirit than any human mage had bound since the Fourth World! I thought that giving one more tool of destruction to the most powerful, satanically unfettered being in the world meant nothing. I was only one more of the dupes on which that monster bestrides the world! I don't deserve–"

"Couldn't you have let me decide what the chummer I love deserves? Frag it, Ilsa, couldn't you have said anything? Two years, I was singing songs, bragging about Harry, and you had this hell inside you!"

"What could you have said? Susan, my good, perfect friend…it wasn't so bad for me. You would kill yourself at once, if you knew it was right, but I hid in my thoughts, my equivocations and the pleasures of life I had known so little. I told myself we would never hear of Torphet's name again, but then three months ago, a growing anarchist group in Hamburg was destroyed by fire. A ghoul community in an old Austrian mine, repurchased by Saeder Krupp…my one good act in the Shadows led to this. I drank for a month, I treated Henry terribly. I could not kill myself, but I swear that I tried–"

"No, Ilsa, we fight for our lives! That's what we always do! Harry told me there were weeks after Hong Kong, he took hold of a gun every night–but praise _Guan Yin_, he didn't do it! I'm only alive because of you, you could save so many, discover amazing magic, and you can _love_! You can't throw your life away!"

"No, I must spend it wisely. That is all that is left for me to do."

Susan was too overwhelmed to answer right away. Paladin, blinking back tears, silently reached down to help Ilsa up.

_"Some of us are more guilty than others, but we all deserve to die, chummer."_ Anya snapped, metallically, _"Don't act like a tragic fallen angel, with higher morals than us slum-scum. You were born in the light, but you always belonged in the Shadows."_

Anya had already passed the Native Californian data to a dwarf decker, liaison between Norton's Army and the People's University. The young woman promised she would pass it on, but not that any more help would be coming from the PU.

"They're unarmed pacifists; they stay out the line of fire. Why do you think this happened to our home? Tir is saying very loud, even the smallest group that opposes them will burn."

The metas did direct the Runners to a tunnel hidden in the graves, with a magic seal that Ilsa could get them through as Tabitha had instructed her. Norton's Army had dug tunnels big enough for trolls, under Orion's guidance, which linked the largest funerary vaults across the city of the silent into an impromptu shelter network.

Cramped as it was for her, Sarah descended into the darkness unhesitantly. A few good howls had propelled her sorrow into sorrowful and purposeful rage. It was Susan who felt lost and weak as a child now–perhaps that was the truth of their lives, until they ended them in despair. Susan had known young Runners and old ones end like that, and it was almost the worst way to lose the best friend she could think of.

Moving forward only, not knowing the end or way, could feel terrible. Feeling so tired and crippled that she would uselessly die if she tried to fight was torture. And she stood confirmed in her view that nothing good ever came from black, claustrophobic dungeons of monsters.

-0-

The vaults under Colma stood almost troll-high; the rich and good of Fifth World San Francisco had even helpfully supplied their dead with emergency air shafts. As well as looming stone angels, effigies and grotesques to accompany their relatively through endless night–though it was the bodies of invading Tir mages, and charred ork or dwarf fighters, that truly made a place of death.

Ilsa conjured a ball of light, which painted the walls with shifting shadows. The harsh, determined set of her mouth made Paladin sigh, even as he half-raised the muzzle of his Ares.

A few old families, retaining their wealth into the Sixth World's early years, had added more modern measures which Norton's Army had avoided carefully. As Sarah stepped through an archway, stone cracked on either side. The hard, cold claws of gargoyles leapt from the dark into both her arms.

Even with Astral vision, fighting a shining black smudge through the gloom was fumbling and desperate. Paladin's infra-red sight was no good against animated stone, but trolls had darkvision; Sarah smashed the construct against the wall. Ilsa blasted its fellow with a Flamestrike. Then Paladin had to drag her onward, pressing a respirator to her face, as sickly, noxious gas from the broken bodies poured through the tunnel. Sarah and Susan held their breath and ran through terror.

After hacking through another gargoyle pair, Sarah was bleeding heavily, and all their lungs were burning. Ilsa broke the rainbow-glowing ward round a final stone door, and they truly faced Torphet at last.

The spirit lit up the little chamber ahead like an evil flare. The wave of heat shook their knees and shook their vision. With his host of Embers, Torphet had clearly grown stronger since their last fight–but the madly proud, world-consuming glare of the ultimate fire spirit was unchanging.

An Ember behind the monster was casting firebolts at a cracked stone door. The shards of several Sealed doors spilt from the corridor Torphet had taken. Breaking through Colma's defences, as the metahumans packed in behind that door waited in the dark to die. Fighter could hear their shrill moans inside her mind.

_"Ornaments for my moment of triumph. The end of a long infuriating command becomes the climax of my just revenge. For defying ME, for commanding ME, die in the flames, Ilsa Tresckow!"_

The Runners fell back from the towering blast of fire, to the doorway's cover. The adepts still had to Ki-shield Ilsa and Paladin from the wave of flames, and still blistered–together, they screamed out. There was no more time; people would burn for nothing they had done, unless Torphet was stopped right now.

"I have one plan." Ilsa had to shout in Susan's ear as she pulled off her cloak, "I have to get across the room, alive, with one Haste and one Heal!"

She was clutching Susan's wrist. Spirit-ridden, exhausted, Fighter barely had Ki for a fragile shield. She could do nothing by charging Torphet but require the Healing that would save Sarah's life.

The young adept still looked to Susan. It was harder for her to nod than face any fight–she had fought Torphet four years ago without fear, and now this was all she could do.

_"This is for my Dad, demon."_ Anya growled like nothing but an ork.

As she and Paladin poured covering bullets into the living inferno, to no effect, Sarah dashed out and upon Torphet with three huge strides. Snapping off a stone angel's arm for a club, roaring as her lungs filled with ash. Groaning, as Ilsa's Heal spell surged back all the flesh that Torphet had blasted away.

_"Burn to naught, nameless creature of nothing! All of my foes will be destroyed utterly, but your death-throes mean nothing to TORPHET!"_

A firebolt from Torphet's off-claw burst on Paladin's chest. Licking at his face; only the flash visor on his helmet saved his eyes. He still went down; Fighter could only dive across the doorway with a medkit.

She should have thrown a knife. Drawn the monster's fire from Sarah, Ilsa...but then she would burn, and never see Harry again…? But the Ember across the room had almost broken into the vault, to burn all the metas sheltered there and end them!

Shoes flashing with Haste, Ilsa dived under another firebolt. Slammed into the far wall, scorched with agony over her side. But she had noted, in this corner of the vault, a sinking and slight crack in the stone, from a submerged pool or river beneath it.

Her summoned water spirit poured up through the cracks, streaming and skull-faced, with jewels for eyes. Torphet's laughter roared through the chamber like a backdraught, and he flung a blast of flames at his natural enemy. The water spirit, barely twisting aside, was less eager to close–but Ilsa's towering magic and dominant will goaded the potent but simple magical creature to its fate. It immediately conferred the Quickness of a Wave on her, so that she could leap aside from more firebolts as if she were Susan Lei.

Fighter was at Sarah's side now, punching out the last of her Ki into the flames. Dodging enough to get burnt only half to death–pain receptors shut down after the first time. You only had to _move_ as soon as the Healing hit. Striking into the heat by pure combat sense, blinded in the glare.

Sarah, bigger and tougher, took worse burns, unhealed. But her Pain Resistance was strong; she pounded Torphet's face with blistering knuckles, again and again. Anya and Paladin, still chill, aimed swift bursts from their guns whenever an angle opened up. Again and again, to the end.

All of them were together in the inferno. The mad place where they went to fight. Where they belonged.

The water spirit shot desperate, enchanted high-pressure blasts. Steam filled the close space, Fighter very nearly passed out. Torphet swiftly blasted the water spirit to vapour, but he had been battered enough for Ilsa to finish.

She had noted the principal shades of Torphet's Aura in their last fight, as if hunting the monster with a photospectrometer. Swiftly, she had noted the growths and changes in his huge incandescent soul, and now every tint was a syllable she chanted unstoppably. Blocking every loophole by which the alien horror poured from its plane of fire, onto the small metahuman circle of the world.

With a roar of frustration that shook the vault and deafened them all, Torphet vanished in a fiery bust. His Ember was gone, and the vault door still stood. The air itself seemed like ash–if magical fire were fuelled by oxygen, Susan knew she'd be as dead as she felt like.

"It is not banished…Lofwyr will find a path to resummon it." Ilsa whispered, "He will not let go of his toys, he will never give up…"

"Oh, be quiet, _Schatz_." Paladin coughed, "Or praise God that we're alive."

On the floor in a black hole, Susan barely heard the vault door creaking back. A growly voice called her Big Sis, and she looked up at three ork kids in charred shirts. Shaven-headed and ugly, but bold enough to be first to emerge from the shelter.

"…Big Sis? Miss Lei? The Imperial Kung Fu sensei? Been over a year–"

"–and you came back to save us! Like you saved the City! You gotta be the chillest human in the whole fragging world!"

The ork boys grabbed Susan's arms and started hoisting her up. She fought them off–thankfully not hurting them, orks were _tough_–and managed to thrust her finger toward Sarah. The troll adept was already standing, as the burnt and blasted-eyed survivors of Colma poured out of the shelter.

They remembered a silent, fearful victim, like so many metahumans who'd come to Colma. Now, they saw a shadowrunner, a fighter, a _troll_ who had gone through darkness and hellfire. To save her own people with her own fists.

A tiny, silent ork girl edged closer to her, clutching an even tinier baby. Maybe it was her's, maybe it had no one else. Sarah saw the child's limbs shake, a spasm of fear for what was gone. She dropped down and folded huge arms in a wall of heart and dermal bone.

In near silence, Orks, trolls, elves and dwarves crowded to Sarah. The children fought to hang from her arms; their mothers leaned against her with sobs. Pressing her with thanks, that their lives' murderous, senseless disaster had been reversed by her miracle.

Sarah bowed her horned head and choked down tears. She held or simply touched all the scarred children and stoic women, survivors like her. Susan grinned at her chummer, and at her own three young fanboys who were still clinging to her. It seemed to her that a whole world of cruel hate had changed suddenly into a better place.

-0-

Susan was unsurprised to find Orion wounded; her _shifu_ had been the last one into the vaults. Even with a medkit clinging to his scorched arm, he looked very tired. As if his mind's eye was already gazing over the burnt tents and blasted mausoleums on the surface, with those survivors who had emerged. Even with the Embers banished and the Tir fled, the metas' place of safety had been destroyed around them, again.

First, Orion held Anya's drone body in his arms; said he was sorry for almost dying without her, again.

"I regret that so many lives were lost, my girl, but I do not mourn my year of work in this place that has been wrecked. I mourn that I did not spend every day of that time with you."

_"Don't go even softer on me, Dad! You were born to lead these people, you saved every one of them that survived…they needed you even more than me…no, no that's a lie, Dad. I'm so glad you're safe…"_

The report came back that casualties were in the dozens. Broken and adrift, Norton's army was still a fighting force. And when the Runners had saved them with their families–so very characteristically, Orion observed with a smile–how could they ever justly deny their call for aid?

"…this is bigger than us, shifu," Susan managed to answer, "You should think about the best course for your people."

One white eyebrow rose, above Orion's dark and craggy face. He commented that Susan had grown more than he had imagined, but it was the truth that no gap was unbridgeable to the metahuman spirit.

"Whilst I rank Tir Tairngire considerably higher than both Sacramento and the Imperial Marines," The old ork continued, "It will be the brutality of the Marines that North Calfree bears, if Tir's invasion whips up a wider conflict. The day of metahuman liberation would undoubtably be pushed back, whichever party eventually conquered. Furthermore, as you have struck down the Native Californians and defended Colma, it is foreseeable that metahumans across Calfree will rally to your cause. If the hostility of Tir may be resolved, then Redding may well be a far better place to build our home than in San Francisco's back yard. We will require vehicles from Redding, and a small escort–but allowing for an exodus in two waves, it could be completed in less than a fortnight. I anticipate, not without sadness, that very few of my people will be unwilling to leave this place, after tonight."

"_Shifu_…thank you."

Susan felt a strange chill of excitement, as she bowed with Sarah. As if something mysteriously very significant, like the enigmatic Tabitha, had been struck. But then, climbing back to the surface and gazed over the ashes of Colma, she felt tired as Orion looked. She needed to talk with Ilsa, she needed Harry; she needed to go home.


	19. Interludes

_I would apologize for this digression, but for the fact that the information I am about to offer is apology enough in itself. And since I digress constantly anyhow, perhaps it is as well to eschew apologies altogether and thus prevent their growing irksome._

–Roughing It, _Mark Twain_

* * *

Lt. Desorn Lightfall, Ghost of Tir Taingire, shuttled down twenty push-ups on his right-hand knuckles. Twenty on his left, twenty with mid-air claps. Then forty squat thrusts, _then_ his unshaking fingers grasped the herbal tea. Steeped for–_yes_–three minutes exactly.

A gratifying start to his day. Physical prowess was scarcely less essential to the elvish ideal than physical beauty or magic arts. Though it was _grace_, beauty of form and conduct, that truly showed the spirit of the master race. At Desorn's exclusive high school, as at every good school in Tir Tairngire, sports had been practically more important than etiquette; the passion of young and old. There had been no chance of his adept powers escaping detection–as they often did for youths of the lesser races in their filthy sprawls. His path to the Peace Force and the Ghosts had been both smooth and inexorable.

He'd learnt since then that unhappier lands did hold some decent individuals, many of whom he'd killed for Tir's sake. He had not forgotten the fellowship under redwood trees, where noble elves laughed and sang in security. Even Tir's poorest lived in far more safety and comfort, with no fewer rights, than Seattle's SINless slummers. He only wished he could rest with his flute in Tir's forests again, after so many years in the field.

In the plain but orderly living room of their new Berkeley safe house, Sgt Alys Morgan was already dressed and parsing intel reports from Rowan, the squad's Matrix expert. His cover job on Fuichi corporate soil had been safe from Colonel Saito's purges. As Desorn walked in from the kitchenette, clad in sweatshirt and green running shorts, he noted that Morgan took a while to avert her eyes.

Lowri Greenwood, squad sniper, was watching a bargain-bin action Trid with her morning craft beer, sniggering over frequent improbabilities. About a country mile of slim leg stretched across the couch; her pale, svelte body seemed designed to hit the male libido like a shock-baton. With casual elegance, she tossed beef jerky into her mouth.

Like virtually all Tir elves, Desorn had never tasted meat before his induction into the Ghosts; they were the wolves who guarded the flock. Greenwood, crunching jerky behind her gorgeous lips, had also shown through five more assassinations over the past six months that she had the soul of a predator.

"_Se'seterin_, Morgan. Has last night's destruction of Colma led to anything of consequence, as yet?"

"Would've been a lot more dead _winegs_ if they'd invited us to that party." Greenwood complained from the couch.

"The culling of metahuman separatists runs counter to our ongoing mission against the Japanese occupation." Desorn asserted drily, "I am grateful we were not 'invited' to an ill-organised and ill-defined operation, as missions ordered by Princes for their private ends not infrequently are. Although the elimination of Ilsa Tresckow would have been useful as the defeat of Susan Lei would have been satisfying."

"You _Carromelegs_ with your fated rivals are so cute." Greenwood scoffed, "I slotted a point-three-oh-oh through Lei's cow-sized left tit, and she's given no trouble since. Scared the daylights out of that _Goronit_ slot. She's finished."

Desorn did not think likewise, or feel that their comrades slain by the Runners were yet avenged. That day would come, but their mission to destabilise San Francisco ahead of Tir's invasion took absolute precedence. Their assassinations, conflict-sowing false flags and funding of anti-Japanese groups, from Norton's Army to the Native Californians, had certainly kept Calfree murderously unstable. The Japanese were still hanging onto San Francisco, however, and no path to their removal had appeared since the Shavarus fiasco.

"Kali, and some less prominent Shadowplayers," Morgan reported, "Have been making cautious inquiries about an unknown woman seen near Colma, during the assault. Their reasoning seems to be that the Japanacorps will pay through their noses for an individual that Lord Lofwyr may have firebombed a town, in part, to obtain."

"And this mysterious lady?" Desorn felt a sharp trepidation as he spoke. The same sensation had saved his life in the field before now, but never struck so inexplicably.

"Nothing, sir. Capture orders have reached the Native Californians, and also Ghost Squad Four, deployed on the northern border. If these orders truly came from Lord Lofwyr, the Prince who commands all secrets, then I cannot think why he has deployed no other assets in Calfree…unless secrecy, outside Calfree and Tir, is his first concern. I cannot explain the, well..._hastiness_ of his actions, either. Unless this woman truly appeared out of thin air."

"Plausibly reasoned. I think we may leave that matter to our comrades in the north, however."

"Squad Four could take out Redding on their own!" Greenwood crowed, "And hunt down every pitiful _pissant_ with a rusty AK from '36. They're proposing a war of stealth and death by night, against the_ Ghosts?_ We should've schooled them _years_ ago."

"The invasion was planned for political ends." Morgan was unable to conceal her distaste, "For political reasons, it may not even take place. It seems to be generally accepted that Colma was occupied by dangerous metahuman terrorists. However, our own supplying of arms to the same _heroic_ metahuman resistors against Saito rather muddies that narrative. Tir commandos were witnessed in the heart of Calfree. There will be blowback–"

"_Makkanagee__!_ The Redding strip belongs to Tir Taingire and it's ours for the taking! Don't you even know that Prince Dar Varian has taken personal command on the border? The War Prince, greatest _Carromeleg_ in Tir, and conqueror of half the noble ladies in Portland! Ooo, if I were a baroness, I wouldn't rest until he'd bent me over a starlit balcony!"

Aside from duels with jealous spouses, all Tir's nobles had to pass through the deadly Rite of Progression to maintain their titles. They were a warrior aristocracy, honing spirit and skill through decades of refinement. In theory, any skilled commoner could attain nobility through the Rite; in practice, social connections were required for one's entry to even be considered. Lowri Greenwood had been barred from the '50 Rite of Progression, not for lack of connections, as she believed, but due to her unsightly and obvious sociopathy. Any current nobles equally unconcerned with anything but violence and sex had at least been trained from birth to conceal it.

"Prince Varian is certainly an ideal of elvish perfection," Morgan stiffly responded, "However, his romantic exploits are hardly relevant–"

"Less relevant to _you_, maybe. _Eyeblight_."

"Greenwood!" Desorn snapped, "You will show your sister-in-arms the courtesy our bond demands!"

He had seen Alys shake like a beaten dog, almost in tears. As brave and loyal a warrior-mage as he'd known, who'd faced death by his side. But she'd been a plain elvish child once, as she was now a plain elvish woman. Every child and adult in her world had let her know that this was wrong. That she was an eyeblight and a disgrace to her people.

But the Black Banner covered over all such things. With monumental security vetting, the Ghosts even accepted _non-elves_. An initiate brotherhood of warriors, bound in life, death and loyalty. Freaks, commons and eyeblights, missions and results were all that mattered. That was the unit Desorn had dedicated his life to. So, he had overlooked Greenwood's sneers and excesses…he had failed Morgan as her commander. But now she was staring as if he were some gallant hero of myth.

"Sorry, sir. A little sisterly tiff?" Greenwood pouted winsomely at Desorn, then grinned, "Hey, want to see something hilarious?"

She flicked the Trideo onto a recorded webcast. None other than Harry 'Hotspur' Fawkes–Desorn narrowed his eyes, rather than laughing–was interviewing a human woman of Redding with a slung AK and a black 'Redding Defender' tee-shirt (Baggy enough to cover body armour, printed out of City Hall). It was apparently an effective 45 second recruitment ad, with competent production, no inauthentic slickness, and more charisma in Hotspur's smile than any human had the right to deploy.

_"…I think you're novahot, Jane. A real hero."_

_"We're just here to protect our homes from invaders."_ 'Jane' trilled, visibly charmed.

Then suddenly, she faced the camera with an elvishly sardonic smile. Hotspur froze with the rest of the screen.

_"Hotspur and Fighter, cheap adventurers hunting glory, can no longer protect anybody. Though their pet deckers can scrub the Matrix quite competently, hiding how many recruits they have already led to their deaths against NC thugs. They cannot oppose Tir Tairngire in the repossession of its own soil. They cannot even protect this woman; her real name is Kirsten Wendell, and her address is 15 Franklin Street, Redding. Anybody who stands with this boy against the Ghosts of Tir will fall. Think of your families and do not resist."_

_"Well, I'm here to protect you. And together, we can protect all Calfree!"_

Crowingly, the Tir decker had retained Hotspur's heroic tagline, as if he were completely oblivious to the hack. Desorn and Morgan chuckled urbanely. Lowri Greenwood howled and kicked her legs.

"Oh, oh, aren't the _shadowrunners_ meant to hijack _megacorp_ broadcasts, and expose their evil…? Ahhhhhahahaha…!"

"Quite, the irony is staggering. I judge that our comrade _Knightmare_ is still with Ghost Squad Four…"

-0-

Anya had found Hailey, after the hacked recruitment ad had gone out, stuffing sugary Stuffers and rocking her head. The Matrix visor she'd barely taken off for five weeks previous had been thrown into the cushions at her feet. Her hair was filthy, her sweet-cheeks gaunt with the shadows of a closet crammed with servers.

Anya had seen a lot in two years. For a start, the data that constituted the lives of every person and social construct in North America, past and present– she could've beheld it all together, with an Ultraviolet host and the will to upgrade until she was Anya no more. But she'd never seen Hailey look like this since she'd been shot on the Embarcadero-no, not since she'd heard how her beloved, Tarne, had been killed there. Anya had waited on her weeping for a day, back then, but then Hailey had smiled at the after-party like sunshine. And if Tir dropped the hammer next week, Anya knew, she'd never in a digital eternity see Hailey Clementine Smith again.

_"Hey, Girl Genius. Gaming binge?"_

Born novahot deckers never tired of the Matrix, any more than AI; birds and clouds both belonged in the sky. After 72 subjective hours of perforating giant ghouls with miniguns, guiding Mesoamerican tribes as their God-queen from hunting to spaceflight, and wooing a harem of elvish princes who proved to be uniformly fantastic in bed…a digital ork and a candy-pink cartoon pony sat on the edge of a sunlit Reichenbach falls. Where Hailey tried to tell what had gone wrong.

Five weeks of constant, silent struggle with NC deckers sleazing onto their comms network. Reposting the call to arms as rapidly as Tir's Peace Force deckers scoured it off the Matrix; a lightspeed swordfight with flamethrowers. Switching frequencies on their defence, morale and recruitment radio broadcasts rapidly as the Tir had started jamming-radio almost meant more than the Matrix in rural Calfree, and Hailey had been right after all to splurge on a milspec mast the NCs hadn't silenced once. After that she had scoured every message board time and again of the lies that enemy spambots were churning. Even Fighter and Hotspur's old enemies from Hollywood were deploying their naturally impressive control of the media.

Fighter is a metaracist. Hotspur went to _Bunraku_ parties in LA. Redding's Defenders are another trog gang, anti-human, in the Tir's pay; bleeding recruits for every nyuyen before they die for the Agricorps in the Valley. Starting with the NC execution vids, Hailey's ESPs had kept burning them down. While Anya had exposed their enemies movements through every camera and dataport, never sleeping; two human assassin teams hadn't got within six blocks of Hotspur before she'd sent volunteers to take them out. Hailey had seemed just as tireless...but the poor girl was only meat.

_"...I did, like, scrub real casualty figures off the Net, as well as lies. Just the drek that the Corps and bad guys do with dirty secrets. I wanted to show up the truth, when I got into decking! Still, the spin those bots were putting on facts would have hurt us. After all we've done, we've got to do anything it take...haven't we? Even Hotspur's giving out guns and orders, sending folk out to die...I still love that man, I'd totally rather die for him than live phoney. Are we still shadowrunners, _omae_? What are Runners, anyway?"_

_"Mercenaries who do the bad guys' dirty work, _omae_. Takes all kinds. Susan, Harry, and the Emperor, they're all 'lead the people to freedom' types. IMO, that's bulldrek– you can only grasp freedom with your own claws– but leaders seem to be fraggers most Runners need to survive. Chip truth; truth or freedom don't mean much if you're dead. Norton's Army, Redding's Defenders–I'm an anarchist, no part of any group, free and lonesome. Since the Agency fell, that's the only way I can live. As for you, I've said it before; if a wage job for Mitsuhama's rising star is too square for you, set up an extraction. Fake your death, if necessary."_

_"Hmm. Doing a runner on Kali could mean exile from San Francisco. That'd be a whole thing, you know…but maybe this mission in Redding was practise?"_

_"More than that, girl genius. You went into the Shadows because you were novahot, you wanted fun and fame. You've been fighting this whole month to keep fascist deckers off our comms, and you put the heart in Redding's fight–for the sake of our chummer, Hrafna, and that poor murdered girl, Lucia. Remember that, and you won't go wrong again." _

Hayley's avatar bounced into Anya's lap. Hugging her round belly, nuzzling between her motherly, digital breasts.

_"Thanks, chummer. You're so wiz! I scrubbed that stupid fake ad off the net, already, but I'll write another ESP to keep burning as the Tir repost–"_

_"And you're very cute, squishy." _Hailey received a very firm and squishy hug,_ "You've been working your hoop off all this year. You could be dead in a week. I know you don't want to die alone. Why don't you take a break and find someone special?"_

_"I guess I wanted to do my absolute best, you know? It hasn't gone like I thought, or saved our chummers who died…but I'm absolutely, hyperlatively glad to have a chummer like you! They said trust is rare and precious in the Shadows, you know, but I guess I'm lucky…?" _

_"Yeah, chip truth, I've trusted and doubted the wrong fraggers before now_ , _but not you, sunshine."_

-0-

_"Good evening, I'm Norman Finknottle and this is Truly Trideo. Here with me in the studio tonight, the beautiful orkish starlet, Kat Berg! Miss Berg, before we talk about the runaway success of Blackstone's third season; you must be glad that the recent tragic violence up north has scarcely touched us here in L.A.?"_

_"Well, Norman, I'd like to say that was because we have no dreadful racist murderers in L.A., but that would be bulldrek. We've got Iron Crosses and thousands of others who'd love to do in this city what those NC drekheads did to our people in Chico. The only reason that has not occurred is that orks, trolls, elves and dwarfs here in L.A. have come together. Armed and ready– that was all it took to send those Humanis cowards running."_

_"Um, isn't there a danger in arming metahuman militants–?"_

_"If you mean terrorists, say it, and I'll tell you self-defence is not terrorism. There's no reason it should make you afraid. The days of police protection for all are long gone. As a proud immigrant to this beautiful country, and a proud Californian, I can tell you that going armed to defend our families may no longer be our inalienable right…but it is our duty, in days like these."_

_"What about the exploitation of these desperate metas by terrorists and criminals? For instance, the shadowrunners who seem to have effectively taken over the city of Redding with a private army of metahumans? We've discovered that some of L.A'.s leading citizens have spoken informally with Governor Whitman, about the liquidation of Redding's Defenders by the National Guard."_

_"We will see about that. Yes, we will see about Redding. I'm sure you laughed at that Tir video hack, didn't you? But I remembered how they beat the NCs down across Calfree, when the National Guard were sitting in barracks. I remembered how they're giving the metas from Colma a safe home, right now, after the graveyards Saito had driven them to were firebombed by the Tir– and I'm not laughing. That's why I'm giving the Defenders of Redding fifty thousand nyuyen, for a start, to defend our country and my people. The parties calling Fighter and Hotspur fakes are those same parties who tell you that Calfree belongs to Tir- and that all orks are drekhead gang thugs, just as in the movies they make!" _

-0-

_"...the lady's got stones." _On the vidscreen, Kali shook her rainbow-dyed head, _"You know she armed the L.A. metas? As well as that slotting charity, she's in deep with the Sons of Sauron; Humanis for trogs. Still, the Hollywood mob are going to hurt her for helping you; she knew that. Thought you should. _

Harry slouched back at the desk which had belonged to the Mayors of Redding, before they'd moved to a modern, smaller hall several blocks down. Despite the unbelievable opulence of _real-wood furniture_, from Redding's forests, the office had been nothing to Harry but a gilded prison. He'd met the National Guard officers, that the LA mob had bribed the Governor to send, on his feet outside. The Guard hadn't been deployed against the NCs (though a few units had fought regardless, without support) or to defend from the Tir, but against the only force defending Calfree, led by the hero of San Francisco. After a brief mock battle they'd sold off their surplus weapons and headed home. Some days made _everything_ worth it.

_"Kat Berg's support should net some more metahuman recruits–" _Kali went on, "_–but you've already expended far more resources on saving poor trogs from cheap thugs than on building any defences against the Tir. Looking like a trog gang will make the support of the Japanacorps, who actually have a snowball's chance of defeating Tir Taingire, much harder to obtain. I understand the Agricorps are winding up their contract with you, now the NCs are gutted. Also, that video hack was a colossal frag up."_

"Next to the regular frag ups, that regularly get my chummers killed? A blow to my pride is nothing."

_"Hotspur, I didn't allow Ilsa to bring you onside for your notable leadership or military experience, since you don't have any,"_ Kali's eyes were tired and baggy, but still suggestive of a burning tiger,_ "Ditto, a record of loyalty, unbroken success, or corporate contacts. All that you and Fighter bring to this task of raising a militia is your popular reputation in Calfree as San Francisco's saviours. That reputation is all that's keeping you in your charmingly secured, guarded and warded little fortress, with the Ghosts and numerous others seeking your life. It's frankly all that's inducing my Mitsuhama contacts to keep persuading Saito to delay your assassination." _

Harry knew it. His insides were churning like marsh gas. But it wasn't for his own life, or even just Susan's. It was for Norton, Tomas, Hrafna, Selene; Hailey, Lucia's parents, Kirsty Wendell, Zachery, Ryan and all of the others. Fighters and workers, all leaning on each other; everything he'd led them to could go down like a house of cards.

He'd felt it for a month. Decisions of life and death were accustomed weight, but the victories were deceitful, the frag-ups were dagger-sharp, and the fear was Hong Kong times ten. Then he'd met with the Mayor, community leaders, half the community– for frag's sake, he'd done _paperwork_. He'd made _speeches_, that they could beat any foe if they faced down fear. He'd sat with volunteers who'd watched IEDs blow their childhood friends to scraps. One of them had tried to punch him. But his battle now was putting heart into everybody, from the cooks and the drivers to the soldiers on either side. So each of his chummers _without fail_ had all they needed to come back alive. He was a shadowrunner, they were all his chummers; there hadn't been so many dead yet that hadn't felt for them all. He could still believe it would work this time, it _had_ to work, all they'd done... he wouldn't be the story of a drekhead. The ones who lived for Redding wouldn't die.

He'd watched his wounded chummers come back from the battlefield where his wife had been struck down, alone without him. The only spots of hope were that it wasn't Susan sitting here, in this agony over him, and she was going to be fine.

Goldfinch, the elf who'd come straight back with her from Colma, had been a top Docwagon healer before Saito's purge of San Francisco. With Hrafna's components and Norton's raw power, Susan's strength would be hers again. And then a hellscape of paperwork would not keep her from his arms, his hands and his lips.

"I remember telling you; I'm doing this to keep the Megas out of Redding, and the Marines out of Calfree."

_"Is that really still the case? Now you know Redding's people, and you've seen them torn apart by the NCs? Now you're leading hundreds of fighters, that the Tir Peace Force is going to chew up with their families, as matters stand? We agree that Imperial Marines on Tir's border would blow everything to drek, but I've been working my hoop off to get official corporate backing, with the Marines excluded. And I'm going to keep pushing, regardless of your wishes; the fate of Redding hangs on the four Japanacorp conference in San Francisco, in three weeks. Redding's Defenders and Norton's Army, the plucky local militias–your job is mostly to create the image of a fervent local defence, until a real army turns up. Isn't that good news? Susan could get out her SeerauberJenny costume and give Redding an inspirational concert. A lucrative legend for the histories, while the real war begins and ends in the Shadows."_

"Is that so? We're hiring Calfree mercs with the Agricorps' final payment, Kali. They'll train our fighters, _Susan_ will train them, and our people might show the Tir even more fight than the _fragging legendary_ show they gave the NCs. Especially the _trogs_." Harry rose from his desk, tight lipped, "Much as I've love to keep gabbing, my wife should soon be waking up from having a Toxic Spirit extracted…"

_"_Ah so, desu ka_. Hmm, if the concert is a no go for extra nyuyen, why not leak your sex tapes? Nothing to be ashamed of, in the twenty-first century; giving your fans something _Olympic_ would keep up your street cred as well as your funds."_

"…Kali. Do you go to bed every night hugging a credstick? Did you ever have time to feel, or love?"

_"I feel. Especially strongly about the especially human matters of money, power and making my mark on a history that doesn't involve the Pan-American war of 2053, or the lonely, bankrupt death of Kali. As for love, I've had to make sacrifices–but even you'll need to make sacrifices before the end of this, Hotspur."_

-0-

After all she'd seen, Susan was still amazed by the changes at City Hall. In the last week, a bustling camp of guns and metahumans seemed to have burst out, with laughing, swearing and a continuous rattle from the basement shooting ranges. Some recruits had headed home for good after the vid hack, but only some, and not Kirsten Wendell. Norton had summed up the mood with astonishing brevity; Tir Taingire would have to do better than _that_. The notion that Tir did not think them worth any more trouble that _that_ had fortuitously not spread. It mattered more that the boys and girls who'd bled for Redding knew what Fighter had done with their efforts, and they surrounded her return with grins and cheers.

Casper, the mad dwarf shaman-sniper, was being happily rolled round the room by Bummer and Lazarus. It was rumoured that he'd slot and run on both the British army and Britain, after shooting his sergeant for mistreating a dog. Archangel and his elf lady–Gabriella, appropriately enough–had already vanished to their hotel room. Hrafna had gone down with another panic attack, the last time she'd braved the main hall crowd, but she was feeding Pup in a quiet side office, ready to merchant when needed.

Tomas had just jogged in with a big group of humans and orks, from a forest training exercise. It warmed Susan's chest to see that Harry hadn't been wearing through the carpet during her magical surgery. Before taking Tomas' verbal report with due attention, Harry had checked how one guy's recent cyberleg was breaking in and sent a second guy with old shrapnel wounds back to the Ripperdoc. He'd asked four recruits if their sick parents were any better, or about the boosts their love lives had gotten from soldierly employment. He shouted cheerfully at one faraway ork that he should either ask the girl out or get his head in the game.

"It just seemed natural," He told Susan, between kisses, after they'd slipped away to the office, "Remembering little things about everyone–" He stroked a channel on her neck that emptied her lungs and set her thighs shaking, "–could be live and death, in Redmond. Valuing the chummers who keep you alive, heart and soul…that's the only way I know to Run the Shadows, angel. Only way to live."

"I suppose…mmm…we've both got a lot of chummers to thank that I ever came back to you, stud. That we're alive, here and now…it's their strength in my arms and Ki in my body…_ah!_ In a way. Harry, Harry, for all the people we've got to save, I need to do everything with the strength of a hundred! I mean, _everything, _stud…"

Harry couldn't have flung the 'paperwork' off his desk without breaking a desktop and two cheap tablets, but he removed them to safety with preternatural speed. They had a hotel room, but he had twenty minutes before his next meeting and he needed this. He wasn't some helpless wageslave, he was _Hotspur_. The recruits knew it and they loved it; Susan knew him, and she loved him. If he could burn up all the paperwork, the death and endless fear, in twenty novahot minutes of love...but he could not just pounce on Susan and bend her over his desk, would not use her like that. He would let her make the move.

Susan took the chance to get the desk between them as she pulled the blinds. Then she rested her tush on the edge of the desk, then her left boot. She threw a smile over one shoulder that was simply full of love.

"Shadowrunners with an office! I know how you must've suffered, Harry. You're going to save this city, you're going to take me on this desk so many times, but _first_–" As Harry rushed to her, Susan caught his arms and pushed him down to his knees.

Both her boots hit the wall, shortly followed by her pants. Susan had to roll up her shirt and bite down on it, as she leant back, or else they'd have heard her in Portland. Her ponytail hung over the desk, shaking gently and unstoppably as her curling toes. Harry gripped her thighs from beneath, and knelt for his warrior-princess and wife, until she stretched out a hand for him to join her above…

-0-

Sarah, Ilsa and Paladin had remained in what was left of Colma, to protect and heal the metas, until trucks and lorries could be run down from Redding. Sarah was sleeping under the stars with Norton's Army, as they all were accustomed to. Ilsa, more intolerant of discomfort, had claimed the unburnt half of a disused chapel of rest. David 'Paladin' Steiner, tearing off his combat helmet as he took the chair beside hers, had told her he was going to bunk down outside. After she'd convinced him that leaving her alone was safe.

"Really? I've survived two years without you, David. Taking one's own life is a great deal harder than you'd imagine–"

"You're harming yourself with words right now, Ilsa. You've been scarring your soul for two years. I should never have left you alone–"

"I left _you_, David. Don't you see that? In Berlin in came to care about your happiness, and that is why I am telling you again to leave me."

"I cannot leave you. I _will_ not forget you."

"_Dummkopf_! I was never your princess in distress. I am a criminal mass-murderer, deserving of death."

"An honourable murderer? Do you think giving your life up like Rommel–or Judas–will redeem anything? You abandon law, faith and hope; you drown in shame without a trace of humility. You gorge yourself on hellfire, and cling to this satanic honour; your last defence from facing what was done to you, Ilsa…"

"What Gruber did to me derailed my life. _Mein Vater_ the colonel, his iron discipline and unthinking rules–may have done more harm than good, if you _truly_ wish to get Freudian. As surely as I am Ilsa Tresckow, however, I made my own choices and did what I did to myself!"

"What you did to yourself _was done to you _Ilsa. By an outcast, fragile, mortal girl, lost in the Shadows and in fear for her life! You are a brilliant woman, of miraculous capabilities and the pride of a lioness, but you are only a woman, facing what none of God's children should face alone. You have made mistakes as well as choices, and suffered enough to break my heart. If you have done so much wrong to save your brother, your friend and me, don't you need love, and deserve it? If you have made mistakes, don't you need forgiveness, won't you take it?"

"MISTAKES?" Ilsa smacked David's face, so overcome by rage that the blow was weak, "Then is my life nothing but my weakness, and the cruelty or kindness of MEN? I bound and gave to Lofwyr this fire spirit, that has brought terror and killed innocents at his will! I betrayed and abandoned one who loved me! I held a gun…to a dying man's head, in his lover's sight! DO YOU WISH FOR ME TO CONTINUE?"

"Yes. Yes, Ilsa." David's hand slipped into hers and clenched, "Tell me all you can tell, _mein schatz_."

"I…turned a dial. With the Agency, I tortured, I…fear I have led everyone I love to their deaths…!"

Ilsa knew what the idea was; the venerable Catholic 'bless-me-father-for-I-have-sinned' business. She could have reminded David, however, if she had cared to, that there were several good reasons priests heard confession behind protective screens. Inexorability, as she wept harder, he gently held slim shoulders in strong hands. Of course, as her lips surged up, his kiss was rich and ravenous. He tasted of ashes, powder and glorious humanity. His muscles all around her were her armour and her drug. Ah, _scheisse_. Humans really did make mistakes as well as calculated choices.

Their second time was a lot slower; they had time to appreciate just how savage their passion was. It was David's second time altogether; Ilsa groaned and whacked his chest. As the witch and her knight filled each other with a particular bliss, that had never moved in the world before.

Ilsa could hardly hold back a sensitisation cantrip that would have transported both their pleasures to a whole new plane– but she did not want to even suggest she had bewitched her knight. She wanted her lover to want her, of his own will, more than anything in Earth or Heaven– as, at this moment, she desired him.

She was a witch, she was a demon. She was doing something terrible, again, with no future, that her love would damn himself for tomorrow when he should have hated her. But this was the path she was on, and she could not stop.

-0-

Desorn usually finished his day as refreshingly as he began it. A short sharp workout, an hour of meditation, and a perhaps a brief flute practise in the dusk. There had been a particular need to calm his mind tonight, after hours of scrutinising intelligence reports for the path to a _coup de main_. And after Sergeant Alys Morgan had finally told him what he'd already known.

"Sir. Thank you, for defending me this morning. It was truly…I've always thought of you as a truly noble elf."

"Thank you, Morgan. It was no more than the due of our bond, as Ghosts of Tir Tairngire."

"Sir, isn't that bond's ultimate purpose that we complete our mission, whatever the cost? In the Armoury fight, you could have destroyed all our enemies and San Francisco itself, ending Saito's threat to the homeland…if you had not chosen to save my life."

That choice had haunted even Desorn's blue-steeled mind. Looking on Alys' tormented, worshipping face, the matter was infinitely more painful, but no clearer.

"Everyone knows that the rules don't apply, for the Ghosts." Alys rushed on, rose-cheeked, "They didn't apply to Greenwood, when she was sleeping with Lankin, and they didn't apply to Lankin when he would…force his attentions on me. It was a test, wasn't it? You wanted me to get up the nerve to complain? I should have done, but who would've believed he wanted me? I'm…so _téch_ ugly! No, we do not fight for ourselves, we fight for others. Peace for every elf in the world, our _vereb'he_! I've given my life for our Land of the Promise…even as you have, sir. When you saved me, I thought…Desorn, I always lo…"

Desorn sighed; Morgan's lips froze in mid-word. He reached out with perfect elvish grace and touched her short black hair. His eyes moved over her slim, flat body. The light freckles across a face that might have been beautiful, if Alys Morgan ever smiled.

"You are not ugly, Alys. If it is your wish to leave the Ghosts, I am sure you will find romantic love. All that I can do for you is to swear by the Ghost Circle and the Black Banner, I will protect, love and honour you as my precious comrade. I have failed to protect you before–for this, I beg your forgiveness. Yet you are a Ghost, serving our nation in a land of darkness. Yours is the soul of a lone elm tree, wisdom and inner strength–you are the strongest woman I have ever known. Isn't the bond between warriors something more than love?"

"I…suppose it is."

His answer had taken a moment to give, but he could not settle it in his mind, even hours later. He knew Tir would always mean more to him than any woman or man, but did he simply not love poor Alys Morgan, or could he not love at all? He had never given more thought to his own sexuality than occasional pangs of doubt that fought his duty. Neither of them were subjects worth considering.

Could he ever be a better leader to Ghost Squad Three than Aeirion, his late lamented commander? If he left the 'heroes' of the Armoury alive another hour, was that an insult to his sworn comrades' memory? If he remained, and plunged all the scum, hatred, madness and songs of San Francisco into chaos–would that be entirely without regret?

Meditation brought him back through the storms of ambiguities, to the redwood glades of peace. The magnificent whispering branches that drew their strength from a single tower…when he opened his eyes, he had his answer.

"Are we going to kill Saito now?" Was Greenwood's immediate response, "Pleease, let me whack that _morkhan_!"

"For once, our hopes agree," In the morning, Alys Morgan looked bland and officious as ever, "Some reports from his metahuman processing centres outside the City have been deeply disturbing."

"Saito's over-aggression is the most destabilising influence in the Baysprawl," Desorn calmly maintained, "His assassination would result in nothing but his replacement, very likely by a more competent enemy of Tir. No, it is the Japanacorps presence, funding and diplomacy that causes the occupation to be maintained. It is Kali who has been instrumental to them in sinking their roots into the Baysprawl. It is Kali and Ilsa Tresckow, Susan Lei and Harry Fawkes, who oppose the invasion of Calfree. With a little assistance from our comrade _Knightmare_, the operation I have in mind will put them all down together like ninepins. We are commanded by our Princes–but our mission, in the Council of Princes' name, is to destabilise San Francisco by any and every means. We will bring the light of Tir to Calfree with our own hands, alone. We are the Ghosts of Tir and this is our work."

Greenwood's lips drew back from her teeth. Morgan gazed on Desorm with rapt satisfaction. Desorn turned to a holodesk, and summoned floorplans of the former Aztechnology Pyramid.

-0-

Hailey had chosen not to tell Anya about _Whiteknight_, the very charming elf decker she'd first Matrix-dated two weeks ago. That had been when she finally knew she'd boo-booed. She'd absolutely fragged up.

But only dumb racists thought every elf was a Tir spy! Why not conceal his metatype with another avatar? Susan, Anya, even Ilsa, had wonderful men; she had fought back NC deckers in silent struggle until she shook and bled. And fearfully needed someone who loved her, to hold.

She wasn't an idiot. She'd hadn't shown him round City Hall's secure systems–Anya would've spotted that. She'd never even spoken a word about her work (In spite of subtle probes, that she only noticed now…?). Frag it, she'd never even connected the cheap deck she used for their dates to City Hall's systems, that was standard OP…but she couldn't tell Anya anything, because she was an idiot, she'd fragged up. The first guy she'd ever had cybersex on the first date with was probably, meaning _definitely_, a Tir spy.

Of course–except for Anya–virtual sex wasn't real sex. But the feelings that made her weep and weep were real. The feelings his slow smile had poured though her, when she'd finally seen it, and the careful strength that had told her this was the one…fraggity fragging frag, how did elf guys do that to her? Her, and all the other novahot decker girls he must have brought down...if this got back to Kali, her career as a Runner was all but finished.

She didn't know. Maybe the Shadows had made her paranoid and insane. She needed to know. The only way to turn this about, if he didn't know she suspected him, was getting precious Tir intelligence from _him_, instead of vice versa. In fact, that would be worth giving up most of all there was to know about Redding's Defenders; if they knew what Tir knew, and Tir didn't…

So, Hailey jacked into the public grid with her burner deck. Her avatar appeared in a virtual discotheque, built from tiny points of light. No cartoon animals, only her own bare body. She brightly smiled and waved at her date's flawlessly handsome avatar. Went to him through the crowd.

Any minute, _Whiteknight_ would pour out how the Tir had abducted his little sister (He had mentioned a sister…) and would be killed unless she went against Redding. Or he would say that Kali would hear she'd slept with a Tir Taingire agent, and have her killed the minute she heard, unless she went over body and soul to the side that won.

She was a shadowrunner. What would she say? And what would she do?


	20. The Slayers pt1

_We are a band of brothers, native to the soil,_

_Fighting for the property we gained from honest toil._

_By every stone in Charleston Bay, by every beleaguered town,_

_We swear to rest not night nor day but hunt the tyrants down._

_Then, bathed in valour's holy blood, the gazing world afar,_

_Will greet with shouts the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star. _

–The Bonnie Blue Flag/The Gathering Song, _Confederate anthem_

* * *

It amazed Harry that City Hall wasn't only an armed camp and refugee reception centre now, but something like a market. The gathering militia and the refugees had _money_, which had hit torpid, forgotten Redding like a dose of Cram. There were food stalls, pack and boot merchants. Horatio, the morose dwarf arms dealer who'd risen from tending bar in Kali's Club Eclipse, had returned to his former calling with a novahot City Hall nightclub. Their hired Ripperdoc had turned his clinic into a battlefield hospital; medkits and cyberlimbs were in perilous short supply, but not volunteer helpers. The chica printing 'Redding Defender' tee-shirts upstairs, with two assistants, had been working from her bedroom last month. A Corp subsidiary could've worked faster and cheaper–but Megacorps now and forever could get slotted.

Predictably, there were also a good few overfriendly and underdressed women hanging around towards the evenings. Harry had just assured the third young lady in a week that, yes, his reputation was greatly exaggerated, _no_, _sorry_, even for her starving kid, he was not ready to get geeked by his beloved wife this evening.

The young lady flounced off just as Paladin and Emperor Norton rounded the corner in pleasant conversation. Having heard that the former Knight was an equally fruitless mark, it was Norton that she deliberately stumbled over her high-heels against, with a lingering hand and alluring smile.

"Ah, good evening, my, um, good woman," Norton managed, "What is it that you, er, _do_ exactly?"

"You may not have learnt in Redmond, Hotspur," Paladin grated, "That Joan of Arc's first act in saving her nation from invaders was to expel prostitutes from the French army's camp."

"What, and this _improved_ morale? The French army didn't collapse in despair, _Oo-la-la_?"

"They knew they served a holy cause, for right and justice."

"What, like the Native Californians thought? Sorry, that was–"

Paladin spun on his heel and stalked away. Harry got the impression that his falling into bed with Ilsa again hadn't had the good result Susan had hoped for.

"He who tames the tongue is a perfect man, Sir Hotspur." Norton sagely chided, moving to Harry's side, "Remember, also, that wine and women have been the downfall of heroes and kings!"

"That is…chip truth, your highness. Hey, did you ever…? I mean, don't Emperors and such need heirs?"

"Alas, it seems it will be our fate to appoint a successor." Norton stroked his beard, to Harry's wonder, gazing into the middle distance, "Still, our former engagement to Princess Caroline of Britain was indubitably a most epic and fated romance…ill-fated, alas, as corporate interests, fearful of the old world and new allied against them, conspired to frustrate our union. In an unguarded hour, we even once conveyed our offer of marriage to the all-beloved _chanteuse_, Miss Maria Mercurial. Doubtless intimidated by the great disparity in our ranks, that shining lady has yet to make a reply. Still, the firm love of our subjects is more than a consolation. We have never failed in our duty to them; never turned back from the course we judge right. We are fulfilling our place in the world's great chain of being–as you are also, Sir Hotspur, assuredly–and what more could be desired?"

After squeezing Harry's shoulder, Norton strode away. He mildly sat down with three recruits huddled round a commlink; Hailey had interviewed Susan and Norton himself for an infomercial 'Who are Norton's Army?', which they were watching. The men shifted to give Norton space, with jovial salutes.

Harry was just about certain; if he'd been mad as Norton, and no better than Harry Fawkes, then he would have convinced himself that every hooker he felt like slotting was his queen and done just as he wanted. No, dead certain–in Hong Kong, that was just about what he'd done.

Chip truth, America had better heroes than Hotspur. His respect for the Emperor was strong as his desire to be a worthier man than he was. While Norton contributed little more than the Imperial Assent to strategy meetings, he had gifted to every one of Redding's Defenders a spirit of good-humour and the impossible. Apart from healing more fighters than the Ripperdoc, he had driven some very surprised drug dealers out of City Hall with a stick. Tomas knew of all the very underpowered gangs that Redding could boast, and anybody accosting Norton would find out rapidly they had two small armies to deal with.

-0-

Harry and Paladin managed to bury the hatchet; they at least agreed about Susan as Joan of Arc. They looked over City Hall, the next day, as the newly hired mercenaries settled in, and the first wave of Norton's Army stumped off the trucks they'd ridden with their families from Colma.

The separatists who'd ridden clutching their guns looked as grim and weary as they would've, wherever they'd come to. Norton quickly stepped onto an ammo crate with a speech of hope and shame on the Tir, which visibly lifted even the fainting children's spirits. Susan and Sarah moved through the crowd, directing the families who couldn't download Hailey's 'Welcome to Redding, chummer!' vid-guide towards shelter. The metas driven out of the Valley had mostly signed up for Redding's Defenders in the end; they received Norton's Army with some caution, but a monumental warmth of understanding.

The mercs, a human-majority mix of metatypes from Calfree, UCAS, Pueblo and Texas, clearly had yet to fall under Norton's spell. A smallish Free Company who'd worked Calfree's civil and border conflicts for years, they seemed more amused than impressed. The North Calfree volunteers from Redding, Eureka and Weaverville who weren't arguing over a card game didn't look too thrilled either at such a mass of armed outsiders.

"Soldiers without occupation are unsecured munitions." Paladin told Hotspur, Tomas and Selene, as soon as they'd sat down in a conference room with the mercs' captain, "More patrols; towards the border more than the city. A serious training regime. Having them dig and refill holes would be better than inactivity."

"Maybe at Knight Errant Corp, but–"

"No, I'm sorry, this place does need a smidge more discipline," Selene, the elvish quartermaster, cut in, "In a month and a half we've had a dozen accidental shootings, dozens of knife and fist fights. I'm getting tired of needing to _explain_, to every stubborn ork who'll only use his dad's old hunting rifle; we can't ensure ammo supplies without uniformity of arms. AK-97s would be cheapest. Anything better would be wasted on their typical shooting skill."

"We shall see what can be done with that." Captain Kanji Arai spoke as laconically as ever.

(It was none other than the ex-Imperial Marine and his partner, who'd fought beside the Runners to save San Francisco, who had arrived at the head of the mercs. Though Hotspur would have welcomed the miraculous reappearance of Owens, Fyrefox, Roller and Douglas rather more, he'd greeted them with delight. Takahashi had affected a fauxhawk and a Hawaiian shirt; he looked remarkably happy with life. Arai looked as serious-spit-and-polish in his fatigues as Harry remembered.

"Seeing the world might take more nyuyen than we anticipated," Takahashi had earnestly related, "But there is more world to see within Calfree than we imagined. More than Saito-san may ever perceive. I've learnt more magic than I'd dreamt possible, before. We have met with some who hate all Japanese, for San Francisco, others that hated me for my magic…even some who hate us for our love. But we have received help and kindness, from many different people…from _metahumans_, who might have cursed us for what we once did to their people. Even to their own families…_ronin-san_, our eyes are fully opened. We will fight with you for Calfree."

"_So da_." Experience had been bitter in Arai's gaze, but his handshake had been solid, "We are all _ronin_, now. Except that we will not acknowledge that witch, Tresckow, we will fight beside you to the death.")

At present, Selena was mildly asking Arai if there were, in fact, never less than twelve deaths per year in Marine basic training? Arai responded, this was the price Japan paid for the world's toughest military force–but of course, he would hardly put Americans or elves through an IJM hell-week.

"Yeah." Harry nodded, hard, "These guys signed after they lost everything, or to protect the families they'll go home to. They left jobs behind, or dreams. They're not killers for life, like us."

"Knight Errant Pawns have families also, and sometimes go home to them," _Unless some novahot Runner geeks them_, Paladin's eyes plainly implied, "Nothing can be accomplished without sacrifice–"

"Can I speak now?" Tomas had been furiously attempting to for a while, "You've worked with wiz Runners, the fragging Marines, and Knight Errant–while I've been running a militia here in Redding since I left school. Ain't that so?" The table acknowledged it, "Chip truth; we didn't spend our all our weekends in the forests and our evenings at the shooting ranges to make up for the size of our _tools_, or _anything else_. What's more, we didn't do this in order to die for Redding like cannon-fodder orks in the fragging Trids. When the fragging Tir Ghosts appear out of thin air, me and my people mean to geek them–we have to be ready, all of us, whatever it takes. Folk who've lost everything but their lives, folk who freely signed up for their families; they can take all the Marine drek, all the Knight Errant drek, and all the Kung Fu drek you can put them through! They've beaten those NC fraggers already, and they'll do more than you can think. Only, don't call them maggots and pissants, or treat them like parts in a gun. Don't forget that they're more than a means to an end. I _know,_ I had two-dozen fighters, before this; more of my family than friends. But if we can keep that, now we're a fragging army, won't that be worth it? A hard, free army–" The ork nodded to Hotspur, "–of chummers?"

"Tomas, my friend. There was a reason I left Knight Errant." Paladin stood, and formally shook the beaded, rant-happy ork militia chief by the hand.

"Likewise, a reason I left the Marines, Tomas-_san_." Arai rose, and bowed his head. He took a moment to stick out his hand, and Tomas took a while to take it.

The three paramilitaries then roundly agreed on Point One for increasing discipline; Hotspur had to stop spoiling the men rotten. Even if they were his chummers, he had to act like a commander as well. Selene, the ex-National Guard officer who quietly and efficiently ran Redding's Defenders more than anyone else, confirmed that it was a balance; call it a _Zen_, if you will.

Typically, Harry hadn't much to say back; he'd felt his lack of military experience even more keenly for the last month than his dislike of moderation. It was like being a green Runner again, after so much drek, learning Shadow-survival with Douglas and the old crew…but only drekhead wageslaves clung to career ladders. Shadowrunners did the job that had to be done. They learnt whatever they had to that might keep their crew alive, this time. Sometimes you had to charge, sometimes meditate and moderate, he could never have survived without learning that. He _would_ do what worked, instead of what the perfect Prime Runner would do…but he fragging wished he was mixing with the recruits right now, like Susan, Sarah and Norton.

(It emerged the next day that Susan had spent her evening having a quiet chat with most of the loose women hanging round City Hall, who subsequently either disappeared or volunteered as nurses. There were more ways to be Joan of Arc than Joan's, whoever she'd been)

"…alright, understood. A bit less hanging out with the ranks. Though I should tell you, they're giving static about human recruits getting more background screening than metas."

"I'll check with Hailey, whenever she does jack out, but we've got enough problems without NC moles." Selene responded. "I don't see many orks signing up for Humanis. I'm amazed that militia fighters are letting us examine their personal histories at all, but I suppose they know privacy is dead, in the age of the cyberdeck."

"Slot that." Tomas growled, "I'm SINless, I never touched the Matrix, and in the old days I never had to rake muck on a comrade. We were going to fight any government or corp, not turn into one! I know, we need this drek now…but tell me we're checking the fragging elves right back to their toilet training?"

With true elvish presence, Selene barely had to incline her head. Tomas dissolved in blustering apology.

"You might recall that Tir Intelligence use non-elvish pawns–through blackmail and coercion, as well as bribery. We couldn't make a real Tir spy with token vetting alone, but we've picked up three stooges already. I'm sure there's a few more we haven't found–but I'm practically certain that nobody in this room is Tir, including me."

They swiftly decided to ask Hailey to equalise the background checks. It had been decided before, without Paladin, that any NC who tried to poison their family from within would be summarily killed. As Harry walked out the back of the hall for a brief water break, Tomas followed him and caught his arm.

"I didn't mean that, I didn't fragging think–!"

"Hey, chummer. Null persp. You're against the Tir, everyone gets that. You say what you feel; none of this would be here without you. Chip truth; why the frag weren't you running this city, when we rolled in?"

Tomas roared with laughter. Thumping down on the steps as Harry swigged from his water bottle and passed it over.

"…ah. I wanted to lead the defence of Redding, didn't I? Never thought I'd be leading an army, or what it'd take…couldn't have done it without you. It's been like kayaking right down a waterfall, with everyone's lives on our backs…you know?" Harry nodded, shadows in his eyes, "But it's been worth it. Two-dozen crazy trogs with a cabin full of guns; Redding thought we were wackos, mostly. Sometimes, I wondered why I was fixing to fight for them…but not these days. Redding ain't my home, it's _our_ home. My brothers, our folks–that hot chica there, over the street! Everyone's coming together. Telling Tir Taingire they got no right to take our lives or our land. That's worth all we can give."

Beyond the rush of the shadowrun, and the prize of victory (Though he had forged through this current job without much of either), Harry's future hopes hadn't actually settled on anything definite beyond making love to Susan for a day and night. Where would they live? Back to the Central Valley, still smoking and ravaged? Or staying on in a town without shadowruns, filled with their chummers?

No. If they actually got through this, they'd be running from every assassin Tir commanded, all their lives. Just the two of them, forever, no matter how many raw orgasms he pumped through Susan's body for a moment of warmth. You couldn't have any kind of family without somewhere to live.

"…frag it, all this time, I've just wanted to get out there with a gun." Tomas was saying, "With my brothers, with all our chummers…how the frag do you stand it?"

"You said it. No one faces death just for the fun of it, not even shadowrunners–we fight because of the people we fight with."

Harry looked Tomas dead in the eye as he spoke and clasped his arm. The big ork grinned like a Jack-O-Lantern and shook his head.

"Smooth as drek. No wonder you got all that tail, squishy!"

Harry gave Tomas a dead arm, Tomas gave Harry a rather deader one. They went back in to face yet more meetings, stocktakes and choices, shoulder to shoulder.

-0-

Selene couldn't have run Redding's Defenders alone–Ilsa had organised in concert with her, ensuring that every squad had a marksman or light machine gun, a street shaman or a medic. Harry had intended to ask her about training their magically-active recruits, with Takahashi…but she had actually locked herself in an office upstairs, with a dusty volume of civic history thicker than a chocolate cake, as soon as she'd heard the ex-Marines were in Redding.

Takahashi had found Sarah, and had a brief, difficult talk with her about the Marines and their pasts, with much bowing from him and silence from her. They did part, if not as chummers, then as allies. Takahashi wanted desperately to say something to Ilsa, but he didn't know what.

Paladin, whose situation was remarkable similar in some respects, paced like a caged bear on the lower floor. Takahashi thought the former Knight looked rather soulful and insanely hot; he couldn't help telling Arai as much.

"_Hm!_" A stern, jealous look and a tightening hand in his. Takahashi savoured the chills.

"I mean, don't you agree, _anata_?"

"Blondes aren't my type, Taka-_chan_."

"Suppose not. You prefer small, cute mages, don't you? While I love, love, _love_ strong and grim-faced men who were born to wear a uniform…"

Arai couldn't help pulling his Taka-_chan_ in for a kiss. His partner sighed, as Arai's hand swept firmly down to his hoop. A few passing recruits whistled or sniggered, but they were used to Hotspur and Fighter. In fact, they started looking at the ex-marines like feeling humans, rather than the evil empire's stormtroopers.

Meanwhile, Tomas had strolled up to Sarah with a commlink. She gave him the flat look that told him not to get his hopes up, if he was looking for _that_–but in fact, he had a vid of Kat Berg's _Truly Trideo _interview.

"Heard you were a fan, right? Ah…?"

"I've got horns, haven't I? And it's Sarah."

"I mean, what's your family name? Dumbest thing, but I never heard it."

"Don't laugh, right? _Rosenblum_. Stupid name for a big dumb troll…"

"Dunno. Not meaning anything here…Jewish name, right?"

"Dunno what _that_ means. My dad got killed by gangers over some drek. My mother…the clinic said a human with a troll inside her had to get it aborted, no choice. A street doc cut me out, on our squat's kitchen table. She got sick after that. They didn't have time to tell me how I should live, or what I was born for… nothing good, I guess."

"Frag it, Sarah…I can't hug you, can I? I just want to fragging hold you."

"It's been years. It never goes away, the fear, but I had to live with it…you can touch me, I won't break."

Tomas threw his thick arms round Sarah's midriff. She was stiff, her eyes were bright with nervousness. It was entirely awkward but strangely tender.

After she'd watched the vid, Tomas told Sarah about the fair number of churches in Redding, as he'd told Paladin. There weren't any left these days that preached about soulless trogs; Jews and Christians were much the same, weren't they? Sarah knew no more herself, but she supposed that meant more to learn.

-0-

Two days later, it gave Susan a strange, rich feeling to see sentries in Redding Defender shirts on the Lake Shasta dam. But a cold wind, scented with blood and ash, caught her ponytail as she leapt from the first of the vans.

Redding's Defenders would never defend much more of north Calfree than Redding. Against an elite and outnumbering modern army of ridiculously greater strength–Ilsa and Selene had both said several times– guerrilla war was a last, fatal resort and dividing their forces plain suicide. Still, Redding's Defenders had fought throughout the Valley–a party of their best men were escorting the rest of Norton's army north, right now. They had sent patrols along the border, they would send more, and they were finally getting to preparing Shasta dam as the key to their defence.

"The Tir can't blast it without maybe flooding the whole valley," Tomas had told them, stabbing his claw at the digital map, "With the lake and the forests, the road on top of the dam is their best route for tanks and APCs. Best place for a hundred fighters to stand off a thousand, until they drop a squad of Ghosts behind us. Still our best chance."

They had begged, bought or captured Ingram Valiant and Stoner-Ares MGs, a few IWS missile launchers and RPGs; Arai's mercs had even brought a couple of Onotari Ballista launchers. But those were all that stood even a chance of immobilising a main battle panzer or getting through a rotorcraft's countermeasures. Decking was still their strongest weapon. Hailey had demurely proposed setting up a field Matrix warfare hub, in the nameless hamlet just over the dam from Redding

"Maybe, like, the people living there should clear out? Before the shooting starts?"

"That place is nearly all elves, and their families," Tomas admitted, "Suppose they never felt very welcome in Redding, though they hate the Tir more than any of us. We should have reached out to them before now, but it's been a busy fragging month. Frag, the Tir are gonna be geeking Redding elves on sight, after they stood with us in '36–but we've got barely any elves fighting with us, right now. We should've reaching out to them before."

Selene lips quirked into a charming smile. Fighter and Hotspur had both frankly wished they'd ever learned from mistakes so quickly as Redding's most fervent defender…but the moment had been brief, before the call had come in.

A patrol had found the token Calfree Guard on the dam dead or fled; they'd seen a sizable NC warband passing over towards the hamlet of elves. Like Anya, Susan had asked what the frag they had to _do_, to finish those drekstains–but what she did was leap into a van. Hailey had come with her, to look over the ground–and even Norton, with Bummer and Lazarus at his heels, had insisted on heading out into the field this time. As Pup nuzzled her two friends' noses goodbye, Susan had hugged Harry and promised him; she'd be back in a matter of hours.

"Right, and then it's _your turn_ to stay home in the castle, princess. You're the one who can train our kids and make them tougher than the Ghosts. Wasn't that something you always wanted to do?"

So much so, that Susan was more scared of fragging it up than anything else. So, for now, she was out in the field again. Shasta lake was a rippling plain of sunlight, with redwoods crowded along its far shore, small as matchsticks and swarming with birds. The faint roar of sluices drifted up the vast, curved plain of concrete that had been second biggest dam in the old U.S.

Norton looked over all of it with a smile; asked a rapt Hailey, could a computer screen ever hold such beauty? Fighter was more concerned with the noise of gunfire trickling over the water, however.

The Runners, Norton, and the volunteers who'd come with them in both vans, quickly linked up with the small patrol on the Redding side of the dam. The militiaman leading the patrol did his best to salute Fighter while lying prone behind a rock with readied AK.

"Too many NC fraggers for us to just charge over the dam, boss. Even if they hadn't, ah, wired it with explosives."

"Oh…drekbiscuits." Haley whispered.

Fighter could make out the heavy wires, running the length of the road that curved above Shasta Lake. Even Ilsa had never suggested more than spreading rumours they were prepared to do this–but who was that batdrek, if not the NCs? They'd lost, all over Calfree, but if they'd had the sanity to surrender they would never have killed orks for being born. They were falling on the hamlet of elves across the dam, right now, with the same insane hate. Thinking of that made it desperately hard to think.

"Boss? Anyone who can get rid of a bomb…?" The patrol leader was asking. Norton immediately stood up with immense resolution.

"Ah, _your highness_, you actually–?"

"We feel certain that a solution will present itself." Norton pronounced, "Nor would it befit our honour to shrink from any task we might have asked of a subject."

Fighter firmly reminded Norton about preserving his life for his peoples' sake. Bummer and Lazarus gazed raptly at her, panting–it looked like they would've both volunteered, if they'd known what bomb disposal meant. Doggos were _Arctic_ like that.

Meanwhile, Hailey slotted a Skillsoft into the chipslot under her brown fringe. Her eyes rolled blind for several seconds, then she stepped forward. Redding's Defenders had used that particular PU-written Skillsoft a great deal, against the IEDs that the Native Californians scattered over the Valley roads and homesteads like poison seeds. Downloaded knowledge was not practiced experience, however, and even the crudest-seeming triggers had taken Fighter's chummers from her before. Her hand gripped Hailey's arm of its own accord.

"We, like, need to get to those people now, or they'll all be killed horribly." Hailey quietly set her shoulders back, still looking towards the dam. "_You'd_ totally do anything you could."

"Frag it, why don't we get to hang out more? I mean, when did I last say you're novahot?"

"Shucks…" Hailey almost looked round at Fighter, more unsettled than Susan had ever seen her, "Null sweat, chummer. It's poor Kilgore you should worry for."

Kilgore, Hailey's new Sundowner drone, hovered swiftly to the edge of the dam like a steel hawk. After five minutes of peering through his cameras, Hailey gave the thought and Kilgore stooped to cut wires. Then she prudently sent Wilson, her Steel Lynx ground-drone, to cross ahead of them. Wilson had motored half-way down the road when a thin pillar of smoke began to rise on the other side, and Fighter stood up.

"Don't be stupid, please!" Hailey tried to catch her hand, "You won't save those folks, or anybody, ever, if you're stupid about this!"

"Lady Susan, we must insist on leading the way! 'Such divinity, doth hedge a king…'"

Since her first shadowrun, Fighter wasn't going to forget what happened when fools rushed in. She'd learnt to plan, or at least listen to Ilsa. She'd learnt to put every weapon she held where they might save her life and would kill the killers. But she _couldn't_ learn to hold back when lives were at stake, not when she'd got this strong and lived this long. Unless you were slaughtering mindless ork gangers in those Humanis-funded Matrix games, no strategy meant survival. Harry would understand…he had to.

"Don't follow until I'm across. If it blows, I'll make a jump for it."

Low and rapid, Fighter sprinted over the dam. She touched grass on the far side level with Wilson, as she heard her chummers rushing across behind her. Then she sprinted into the trees towards the sound of assault rifles.

-0-

The elvish hamlet was, rather conventionally, nestled within the forest that crowded the lakeshore. The dam had wiped out the river's salmon decades ago, and passing trade certainly wasn't a livelihood; the elves mostly combed the Shasta caves for magical components. The village had evidently been very awake to Tir's coveting of said caves, and duly prepared.

The NC had got close enough to fill one solidly-built blockhouse with firebombs, before lethally-aimed gunfire from every house had routed them to the cover of trees and their pickups. Within the houses, human and elvish mothers applied medkits, while beautiful children loaded stacks of rifles for their parents and big sibs. Who knelt at the windows and shut their elvish ears to the groans from outside.

Four young elves had held off the Native Californians, while the rest of the hamlet got to their homes. Two of the elves had been ripped up by AK-bursts, two of them had been taken alive, and one of those boys had now finally expired. Elorn didn't know why he'd bothered spitting out that he was born in Redding–he was no spy for the Tir, who would kill him and his father the day they marched in–it was the truth. It hadn't stopped the skinhead humans from putting bullets in his gut and his kneecaps, kicking him to the edge of the darkness; binding his hands was just an assertion of dominance. Then, with ice-spear clarity, he saw only the brute with a gun above him, and the drone in the sky which had shot the man down.

Fighter, likewise, was grateful for Hailey's distraction. Big AK bullets still smashed through the treetrunks, as she dodged one to another. Then she Wallran halfway up a great oak and spun down, smashing a skull under her boot-heel. As the other Defenders doggedly rushed up and opened up, from the cover of trees and rocks.

Even with Fighter roughly weighing in against six of the fanatical militants, her band were outnumbered. Yet she only had two more throats to kick through, after all that, before the NC warband were crushed like a can in a vice. Their leader barely had time, before an AK bullet zipped under a truck to shatter his spine, to press the button he should have pressed minutes ago, had he been watching the dam rather than geeking Tir Daisy-Eaters. The secondary radio detonator went off along the Shasta dam.

-0-

Past a wall of smoke, through her drone's shaking optics, Hailey breathed again to see only the road across to Redding had been wrecked. The dam still stood–though a ghastly crack reached almost down to the lake. Terror made the vision of crashing floods over north Calfree more vivid than any million-nyuyen Matrix dream.

Even before that, Redding's Defenders hadn't been inclined to mercy for the wounded and surrendered. They'd seen too many burnt homesteads and tortured bodies; they'd learnt there was little you could do to a Humanis and feel much guilt for. But Norton stepped forward; healing the wounded of both sides, looking on the carnage and the groaning dam with a terribly, majestic sadness. The Defenders reluctantly shouldered their guns, and Norton told them they were great heroes.

The NC man and woman who'd thrown their hands up eagerly agreed. They'd joined the Native Californians to fight against Tir Taingire, they said; if they'd tried to desert they would've been carved up and shot. The glaring die-hards who Norton had Healed certainly looked ready to.

Fighter couldn't have protected them herself, probably wouldn't have. The idea that she could have been the heroine of Humanis, if Ork Slayer instead of Orion had been her _shifu_, only made her hate them more. She had owed them her life, since her first shadowrun, and hated that; now she owed her life again to their incompetence. It was always a drekky feeling, knowing that better Runners than you had died, but death was the only escape.

She plunked herself down next to the NC's former prisoner, Elorn–a black elf with his mass of dreadlocks tied back, and the build of an Olympic sprinter. She fiercely wanted to be treating his injuries, but could hardly complain about Norton Healing them instantly. It wasn't that she was some messiah who had to do everything; when she felt this useless, she had to do _something_.

"Hoi, chummer. You chill?"

"Suppose I'll live."

Shaking with the ghosts of healed agony, Elorn gave one glance at his fellow villager's gutted body. Then he moved away. Susan sat close to his side, nearer the lake, as Hailey sat down with them.

"It looks like you and your village really fought. That makes you heroes, no matter what. Believe me."

"…okay. Doesn't look like it was enough, though." Elorn's voice was low for an elf, as the mud beneath a shining river.

"We're setting up the defence of Redding against the Tir. The plan was to dig in a fortress or something and hold the dam–but it looks like you're a fortress here already. It would seriously be an honour if you fought beside us."

"Is that so? No worries about Tir spies stabbing you in the back?"

"Do we look like Humanis, skinny?" Growled a dwarf woman among the Defenders, giving a hearty kick to a dead skinhead.

"No. You look like Redding–why the frag d'you think we live across the lake? You think, you suspect, or you fear, that me, him, all our families–" He pointed to his slaughtered friend, "–are spies for Tir Taingire. When my old man fought the Tir in '36. When the first ones those arrogant, unashamed fascists will put up against the wall is us! They brainwash their people that every other country is a drekhole, and _goronagits_ are race-traitors full of unelven blood and spunk. Half of us were exiled from Tir for breaking the purity laws or looking at a noble the wrong way–and yes, some of us are fragging Tir spies! Our village has one street, and most of the Tir exiles on one side don't speak to the Redding elves on the other–I never spoke to _that_ poor fragger in my life, before today!" He indicated another of his dead comrades, "So we're no more a happy family than the rest of this drekhole state, but we decided–at least, my old man and his stupid buddies decided–to make our stand here against the world. Serious, thank you for saving my life; but don't expect any thanks or help from _them_. They don't expect it from you."

The village, indeed, remained silent and guarded as a cemetery. The dwarf joked that if she had thought elves were always laughing and singing to trees, just looking at Elorn's face would have set her straight. Norton ushered her aside for a stern word. Bummer rubbed up against Elorn's side sympathetically.

"Um…I'm Hailey. Hi, chummer!" Hailey smiled up at the taller, grimmer elf, as she fidgeted and blushed like a rose, "Um, er, like, you kinda remind of this other elf I knew! His name was Tarne, and he was really serious as well. Whenever he did speak it was absolutely something to hear, and do. Coincidentally, he sort of turned out to be a Tir spy, so I guess you're not _totally_ alike…"

"Guess not. I'm sorry you went through that."

"Null sweat. Shadowrunners have to be tough." A pale shadow blotted out Hailey's smile for a moment, "I couldn't ever, ever,_ ever_ give it up though, it's so much fun! Just like falling in love."

"Right. Forgive me asking, but do most of your crushes have pointy ears and magical hair?"

"…not all of them."

Hailey looked away. Even with her secret dalliance with _another_ Tir spy threatening a Shasta dam-sized catastrophe…she was _not_ the creepy elf groupie she saw reflected in Elorn's weary eyes. A couple of her San Francisco chums had ruined themselves for the sake of sex with an elf–she assumed the San Francisco elves had needed all that nyuyen to survive. But she just kept falling for guys who happened to be dark, strong, solemn elves…as _Whiteknight_ had probably known.

…Susan was even mugging encouraging faces at her. Heart rotten with guilt, Hailey smiled brightly back.

-0-

"Okay, so how are we getting back to Redding?" Susan asked, standing up, "There could be more NCs heading right for us, right now."

"Miles around the lake, miles downstream to another bridge," Elorn glumly offered, "We have boats down at the lake you could probably commandeer at gunpoint–"

"_Commandeer?_ We scorn the word!" Norton clapped a hand on the elf's shoulder, "As the generous goodwill of our subjects has sustained our life before, today it shall carry us home across Lake Shasta in triumph!"

"…right. Like I said, those folks aren't keen on anyone making them subjects…"

"We make nothing of anybody, my good elf. This is our land, and these are our people. Our quest is but to heal the wounds of our people's bodies, and the wounding divisions between them, by serving as Emperor to them all. That all peoples may live as and where their nature guides them, in fellowship and freedom–with none to make them afraid."

Elorn finally manage to tell them that the NC warband had shot up all the boats after being forced back from the village. A militiaman suggested that Fighter could 'ninja' across the wrecked crossing, while Norton could fly across on a nature spirit's back. Fighter responded that they weren't about to leave the rest of the party on their own. The mood was getting rather frustrated.

"Do not despair, Lady Susan." Norton consoled her, "As soon as Sir Hotspur hears of your plight, he will certainly fly to your rescue…"

To Norton's bemusement, most of the party burst into ribald guffaws. Only Hailey, apart from Susan, wasn't laughing.

"…he, like, totally would. I called Redding as soon as we were cut off. Susan, I think we need to get back there _right now_. And, your highness..._thank you_."

"Whatever for, dear child?"

"For being you, I guess?"

-0-

Back in Redding, Harry certainly was heading straight for the doors of City Hall, sword at his side– when Paladin intercepted him. The fallen knight's eyes seemed to reflect Hotspur's primally furious brown gaze. The shadowrunner was a wolf with his mate's howl of distress in his ears.

"Do you mean to rebuild the dam yourself?"

"I just need to get to her. I'm an adept, I am not staying here, _they did this to cut them off from help!_ _Cut Susan off from me! No, no, never again!_ Thought you were meant to be smart. Wouldn't you go if it was Ilsa? Hypocrite–!"

Harry was adept-fast, but Paladin had killed vampires for a living. His muscles crashed against Harry's speeding body, but for a moment, the struggle was only breath and fury.

"–_dummkopf!_ The NCs!" Paladin hissed, "We thought they would assault Norton's Army as they travelled, if they could still pose any threat at all! But the greater part of our fighters are escorting them up, or patrolling the border, or trapped with your wife who the world knows you would cross water and fire for, but you must not! It is not _she_ who is in danger…!"

Hotspur and Paladin's commlinks rang together. Both of them went for their earpieces; it was Anya.

_"Guys, we're getting too many glitches on security cams. We ain't been hacked; it could be hexes. Could be nothing, but you know, it never is..." _

-0-

One advantage of City Hall as a military HQ, in Tomas's opinion, was its position in the centre of a wide and grassy town square. Redding's Defenders had occupied two disused shops and one small office block round the edge as sentry posts and put up a basic fence; they stopped any civilians who weren't trusted Reddingites and kept the volunteers or merchants securely within the hall. A few Stoner-Ares MGs stared through sandbags at the front. They'd even towed some concrete blocks into place as anti-ramming bollards…Tomas' claws still had the blisters. But anybody who thought that was no fit work for a real leader could get slotted.

He knew his people, he'd ask nothing of them he wasn't _ork _enough to do himself, and they'd soon stand in the firing line together against Tir Taingire. Hotspur and Fighter, Tomas, Sarah, Hrafna and all the rest–they'd play their part, he'd make sure of it. However strongly his bunk in the basement was calling him.

With nothing else to fill the last twenty minutes of work, Tomas chose to stump out to the south sentry post and chew fat with his brother Jules, who was stationed there. Then they'd meet up with brother Rick and knock back some awful synathol in the City Hall bar. Maybe he'd see Sarah Rosenblum there, one evening, smiling.

He automatically slung his faithful AK over his shoulder as he went out. Typecasting drekheads labelled orks a warrior race, but, born in sleepy Redding to think only of the coming war, Tomas reckoned he had a warrior's spirit.

There was one ork standing sentry outside the post. His partner, he gruffly stated, was ill.

"Then call relief for him! Can't get sloppy when we're defending every life in Redding, soldier."

"…not my Karen. Joe. Linda…"

_"What?"_

The ork recruit's stiff face shook. Like a monster in a mire, Tomas glimpsed the torment within.

"…_they_ called me. They had my wife and kids. What they said they'd do to them, if I didn't–!"

Then a human woman with buzzcut hair, from within the post, put two silenced bullets through the sentry's skull. Tomas was bursting through the door, punching her down, before he'd even begun to swing his rifle about and fill his lungs.

He was squeezing the trigger with three bullets punching through his chest. Then two in his head blew out all Tomas Moran would ever do or be. His brother Jules had died from a single stab wound with the other men and orks in the post.

Amy Noble, the blonde NC officer who had scarred Hrafna, looked over the five trogs and traitors her men had killed in all, sourly. The trog's unsilenced gun had fired into the ceiling as it went down. They HAD to move, now. She would not fail the man who would save Calfree as he'd saved her; not this time.

Skinheaded men and woman held their Colt-M23s ready, to charge across the square. Pendants of tusks and elf-ears rested against N.C. shirts–the only Native Californians left now were the best, the last true warriors left in Calfree. But she knew that bringing their last pure human nation back from the brink–striking down the usurping traitors, finally facing down the devils of Tir–would take more than the whole of their strength.

She gave the word. The first man out the door toppled back against the next, blood splashing from his punctured forehead.

As her men drew back, Noble coolly traced the shot to an overlooking church steeple. Infiltrating this close with a missile launcher had been difficult even with the help of that miserable trog, but it was paying off at once.

"Hold fast!" She shouted, "Fire when he fires on me!"

With fleet-foot adept speed, Noble sprinted alone across the square. Another bullet struck stone at her feet, then the IWS launcher bellowed and the face of the spire collapsed. With a savage cheer the NCs rushed out, under cover of burst-fire from the fallen post.

(As a summoned Wind Dancer spirit bore Will Casper down to solid ground. The dwarf shipped his Remington, readied his FN HAR for close-up work. Jogged toward the sound of guns, with dull eyes and a blood-curdling whistle on his lips)

Gunfire rapidly opened up from City Hall and around the square. More attackers fell; Noble screamed that they had to take the hall or die. Glass shattered under fire; two more Defenders soaked windowframes with their blood. The IWS launcher blew a chunk out of the office block-lookout post across the square. The heavy gunner was turning to City Hall when Takahashi flung a manablast from the second floor, that scorched his brains out.

"_ABUNAI! ABUNAI!_ ENEMIES, WITHIN THE GATES!"

NCs were charging the maglocked back door, with a police-issue breaching charge, when a huge she-troll smashed it open; the door smashed them to roadkill as well. Her dark hair shone like her fangs as the monster roared, spraying auto-fire with the Semopal in her off-hand.

But Amy had killed trolls before; she _would not_ fear them. Darting under the rifle, she stabbed her thin sword through that giant arm that still had _tendons_–before the Semopal hit the ground, her second and third blows had stabbed through Sarah's chest and neck.

-0-

On the far shore of Lake Shasta, the woman known as Tabitha stared across the waters towards Redding. Her body appeared almost as young as it seemed weak, but her eyes held more sorrow than all the ages of human history. Yet the carved consciousness of fresh wounds, in the gaze of those dark eyes, seemed even more terrible…

"Hoi, chummer. Small world. Can you do anything to get across this lake, or fix the dam…or _something_? We'll pay you back any way we can."

With torpid slowness, Tabitha turned her head towards the woman called Fighter. The one whose Aura burned red with imperious passion, black with the roots of fear…beautiful and strong, as humans counted such things, yet such a brief, bright candle. So many gone before…

"I was contemplating the destruction of this obscene dam. Salmon cut off from their ancient migration, dying helplessly. Sites sacred since the Fourth World, drowned and lost. The river polluted, choked with filthy houses of man. The flesh of the living Earth, scarred with poisons and marked by defilers…"

Fighter had taken one Run for TerraFirst in Seattle, releasing animals from a Shiawase lab, which Ilsa had needed to put down to prevent a plague outbreak. She'd thought their beliefs were a bad joke, but it had been fair work for the nyuyen. No visionary or megalomaniac she'd met in her life, though, had spoken with the weight of Tabitha's voice.

"Chummer, thousands of people will die if you bring down the dam. I'm sorry, about the world and pollution and that–"

"You never thought of them before." Tabitha hissed, "You love nothing but man."

The sudden terror that struck Fighter almost put her on the floor in a puddle of urine. When she could speak, her voice was very shaky.

"…yeah, I care about men and women and metahumans. They're idiots, most of the time, but some idiot's got to fight for them. If you want to just drown or burn us little people off the Earth, then I will fight you."

Tabitha inclined her head. Like Ilsa, Fighter could partly feel the space where her Aura should have been, and it was _huge_–an inhumanly big astral shadow. Norton, who Fighter had pinned some hope on, had silently bowed his head. Bummer and Lazarus were whimpering on the floor, and the NC prisoners looked even worse. One street mage among the party had dropped into an ecstatic trance. Susan stayed rooted to the spot, until Tabitha smiled and sighed.

"The one who battles against destroyers destroys their own self…yet you ask aid of me? You demand I set right all that is ill with the world? Have more care of your wishes in future. For the Earth's sake, I should bury my rage in stillness and silence, in dreaming of vanished forests, until passing ages have dissolved your aberration of a world into nothing. Yet, must I first assist you, out of all metahumanity, with your ephemeral personal troubles? _Must I?_ Do not make a merchant of me again with such an insult as offers of payment."

"…my husband, the man I would die for, is fighting right now for his life. I have to be at his side, I would…! If he dies, hundreds more metas in Redding will be killed. Or raped, or they'll live on under the foot of evil–making people with loves and names into victims, subjects, _things_, is simply evil. I don't know what our lives look like to spirits, gods, or whoever you really are. But I don't believe there will ever be a life like Harry Fawkes' again, in all the ages of the world. I cannot let go of him. Help us, please."

"…my sister." Tabitha stared wildly away; Susan wasn't sure if she'd heard anything, "My sister, how your spirit must be in torment. I must find you…"

"My lady." Norton whispered, sinking to one knee, "If you must remain in this world, is your heart not inclined to mercy…?"

"In truth it is, and so must I be–_Kingmaker_." Tabitha smiled as if at an old friend, "Your borrowed majesty is…altered, strangely. But your state has its own peculiar charm…much like this strange Sixth World." She turned to Fighter, "Human Hero. Be careful not to regret the deal you have made."

Tabitha stood, raised her hands, and the rim of the dam lit up like the dawn; every crack and blackened stain was restored. She vanished without a word, and a raven fluttered off to the north. Fighter's party were racing to their transport before the light had faded, towards the battle for Redding that had already begun.


	21. The Slayers pt2

_In this strait place a thousand_

_ May well be stopped by three._

_Now who will stand on either hand and keep the bridge with me?_

–_Macaulay_, Horatius at the Bridge

* * *

Ork Slayer–as he generally did when plans were set and there was only the wait–was thinking of his sister. She had been a strong, forward woman who cowed lustful trogs with words more telling than blows. A caring mother and working father to him, after their SINless parents had sickened. She'd even clipped his ear whenever he'd taken insects apart to see how they worked and wriggled. He'd loved her, of course. She'd been right to tell him such creatures were harmless–a waste of his exceptionally precious time.

He knew of secret laboratories in Philly, Atlanta and the Mojave, where scientists tirelessly studied the harms of metahumans and how they might best be destroyed. His calling should have been to such research, he'd often thought, had he not been born on a dirty, failing homestead north of Chico. He'd had to secure his own intellectual development, through a few old books by W. Luther Pierce, W.S. Lind and Robert Howard. Ignorance and trideo lies made good men worse than trogs; knowledge and imagination, above all, would bring a solution to the metahuman problem. It was imperative that extermination be sped towards its end, by some means, if he meant to work solutions for the Reds and Nips within a single devoted lifetime.

His sister had been raped and murdered in a filthy alley, within a year of their move to Chico. There'd been little the cops could do against SINless trogs, except drive through their slum arresting any meta on the street and shooting into their homes. Ninety percent of crime in Chico was SINless trogs and gangs, they'd told him. There had been nothing they could do for his sister; nothing he could do at all.

A world of senseless problems, that somehow rejected any place for him. Crammed with ignorant, dirty trogs, who laughed at him with their filthy families. Rutted more huge broods of trog-spawn out of their sweating bovine breeders. And then strolled down the nearest alley to defile human women, defile everything pure that men made and owned.

Head of a vanished family, he'd had to make a place for himself. Make a bigger family. Remake a nation. He'd read the real history. California had been the richest state in America, forests filled with clean air and cities with freedom. Before the trogs, the Tir, the elf-ruled Megacorps and Redskin-loving UCAS had ruined her. For humanity's survival, all would have to go.

_History_ had taught him that agents of genocide generally died in bed. The world knew in its craven heart, they were its saviours. While ignorant half-men followed the beast, heroes went forth to face the monster at the gate. The Tir invasion that had united all Calfree against their foes, the flood of weapons that he would turn against the decadent daisy-eaters themselves, very soon–all of it confirmed his destiny of slaughter and salvation.

It did pain him that destiny had never granted space for seeking his sister's killers. He'd never _feared_ any sub-human brute, since the night he'd carved up his first trog in an alley; that thought was absurd. He'd no regrets about _women_–what could be more brutish than submitting to soft embraces, with screams of murdered sisters in his ears? The world was a black, bloody battlefield, and knowing that truth was his power. Noble, every woman he'd saved, had begged him with their eyes for what women desired but he'd never been moved.

Saving women had always taken a special place in his mission. He'd had to make them strong, to fight back the brutes. Stronger than his strong sister had been–not wilful whores who walked down midnight alleys alone. He'd always found out women who'd been defiled by trogs, or had the courage to claim they'd been. He'd killed all female weakness and mercy in them; he was proud of the fighters he'd made. What their words of agony had made of his men.

True Californians, they would die for that _American_ vision and freedom that was manifest in himself. The cause that would scour every invader from Calfree, with the light of its bloody dawn. For his sister's death, he chose to be nothing but a slayer.

Sweat bound his armour to face and body. Noble's diversionary attack from the south lookout post had already begun. Alison Blanche, the little blonde shaman who'd seen her sister killed by ork gangers, was on his right side. Redhaired Peggy-Jo Holstein, whose father had already given all for humanity, was on his left. Heaving a launcher onto her broad and leathered shoulder. The blood of the sentries in the north lookout post–were under their feet.

The pathetic Halfer, who'd thought he could save his woman's life by leaving a door unlocked and fiddling with some security cams, had TRAITOR carved into his cooling forehead. Mercy for weakness was unforgivable sin; he had known since he was sixteen that only the strong survived. Now, it was time to show his strength.

(Quietly, Alison prayed for Great Mother to have mercy on all the monsters and lost souls her comrades would kill today. Above all, to protect the hero she looked up to with her huge blue eyes. She was weak, too weak to save her sister. Only strength could save this awful world, only her hero was strong, and so his words were a righteous saviour's…)

"We are here to cleanse this city. Tomorrow, we shall hold Redding. Next year, we will drive Tir's princes to the slaughter, crushing the lamentations of their devilish women. Kill anything in your path, and you will be worthy of tomorrow's dawn. Now."

-0-

Ork Slayer's chosen happy few charged onto the square. Pouring from cellars, alleys and vans in the city behind them, dozens of NC fighters brandished Colt rifles and RPGs. Screaming the names of their dead comrades, their women, and their blood-soaked chief. They had fought the monsters from Redding to San Francisco, and they had lost–but they could not lose today. They were the only heroes left and their cause was just.

An NC sniper, who'd shot dozens of trogs from Chico's tallest spire, took out a machine gunner in front of City Hall–before a sniper from the shadows blew out his brains. Gunfire lashed down from the Defenders' last of three lookout posts on the east side, crossing with bullet-blazes across the wide brick face of City Hall. The Native Californians fell back to the edge of the square, like circling wolves with heavy weapons.

A child was screaming somewhere, until a missile blew the bell-cupola off City Hall and drowned it. Havoc roaring loose from every gun-barrel, choking the air with cordite and the death's touch. Ork Slayer recalled his first real battle, when the world had seemingly slipped onto one side. He'd cut down that trog street gang and their spawns even then, however–set the world right–and now he was serene. Nothing disturbed his superhuman, world-shaping hate for monsters of lust.

Silencing the west lookout post took a missile, and a tattooed mage rushing in to hurl a fireball. Before a sniper took him out too. Holstein, the other missile team, and even the RPGs were down; infiltrating the city had cut down the heavies they could field to begin with.

They'd even taken fire in their rear. Shotguns from storefronts and handguns from corners–the treacherous scum who called this town their rathole. Firebombing two more buildings behind them had supressed that distraction, although it was clear that Redding would not be worth saving until it had been thoroughly cleansed.

Two Stoner-Ares MGs were still pouring fire on them–City Hall stood blackened and resistant as a battleship. The speed of the Defenders' response was unexpected, but not un-allowed for. Ork Slayer nodded to the brunette NC woman with a drone rig, crouched behind the same swiss-cheesed Ford Americar. He was glad yet again of having read W.S. Lind–father of Fourth Generation Warfare–who'd so prophetically in 2014 called dark-skinned gang-thugs 'orks'.

-0-

As Noble's razor-edged sword slid past her windpipe, Sarah knew she was going to die. _Again_. The fall of Colma, the Armoury, the Embarcadero…but nothing had hurt like the gun against her brow as the marines took turns to rape her. Knowing she would _live_, weak and worthless, with that terror bound to her limbs through midnight hours and helpless years. Yet she hadn't fought and died, however it had hurt–nothing was more worthless than death. There was no worse fate. For Hrafna, Susan, _Tomas_ and everyone but her miserable self, she could not die.

Clutching her neck wound, she hammered her titan elbow into Noble's face. Troll reach was useless against a sword. She had to close. The NC adept dodged a knee-strike that would've broken her neck. Pulled back her sword-hand past her lovely white cheek in the _finestra_ stance, then volleyed stabs through Sarah forearm and scalp like a chaingun.

"Better than you, monster." One blue eye flared like a hawk's wings as she lunged, "Not going to lose!"

Sarah planted her back foot–blood was pouring down her chest. Then the cool relief of Healing washed through her. She stared up at the window where green light shone from Takahashi's palm, before three NC gunmen flung grenades up the wall like stones through windows.

The blasts silenced gunfire from the rear second floor, as the NCs rushed through the back doorway. More gunfire rang out within–that unending discordant torment that shredded nerves of flesh down to wires of steel. Before even steel broke, or else blood-splattered eyes howled with the laughter of beasts, as bullets rained on steel and brick. From blast-shields and doorways the Defenders fired back, the NCs fired on, and the adepts battled.

Blood flew from Sarah's body, like a defiant bull in the ring. A punch caught Noble's face. Ki Armour and Pain Resistance kept her upright, but it threw her back. Before Sarah could rush in, she had to smack a spitting rifle from her head; four of Noble's men had hung back to surround her. After all their captain had fought through, they weren't taking a single chance with this trog slot.

Sarah punched through a skull, as the first shots tore her arm. Then an FN HAR bullet suddenly pulped one man's eyeball across 400 yards of square and street–for Will Casper, loping relentlessly to the fight, 400 yards was close-up work. An NC's shot smashed a Stuffer Shack window behind him, and the cashier's shoulder. Casper didn't hear her cries or see anything but the falling targets under his gunsights.

For Hawk on the hunt, there was nothing but the prey and empty sky. In the grip of the Totem that had brought Private William Casper through a half-tour of the Lambeth Containment Zone–to the edge of toxicity–the shaman-sniper watched the troll and the human battle on. If the troll woman killed her enemy, he would Heal her, and only then. If she fell, he would shoot the NC slot down–perhaps Hawk would have him shoot them both. But the troll ought to get a chance for proving she wasn't prey. That she was worthy to survive.

Noble saw nothing but the monster she had to slay. Her head rang, her men needed her, but the only good trog was a dead trog. _Ork Slayer_ would never have left a single monster to rape and kill, and he had saved her worthless life–she had to be worthy. More than the spoilt teenage daughter of respectable wageslaves, who'd _just once_ gone clubbing down the wrong end of Sactown. Left bleeding on the sidewalk, that dawn had hurt her blackened eyes. It had hurt more, knowing that she'd would never, never know why this had happened to her. Why her own body and her life would never be hers again.

With a howl, Amy Noble kicked off the wall. Flew up above Sarah's head. Her sword flashed and plunged through flesh; a kick wrenched it free in a bloody gout. Noble touched down, as Sarah dropped to one knee; spun and kicked again at her hideous jaw.

Such things didn't happen to strong women, not to _SINers_–it had made no sense. Until her saviour had shown her the world's truth, how naïve she'd been. How ignorantly culpable for her own rape, when monsters invested the world and respectable SINers did nothing. She'd emptied her executive father's bank account for the cause of justice; left her false family for a true one. Her saviour had taught her to fight back. She'd screamed and cried, at the _videos_ showing the nature of the beasts, for days on end–but facing her nightmare had finally scoured weakness from her soul. She saw nothing now but rapist monsters, and there was nothing she had to do but slay them.

Sarah knew what had been done to Amy–what the marines and Shavarus, had done to her–but it was Hrafna's ravaged face she saw, as the sword went back one last time. As her forearm came up, as the sword stuck in it, as she seized a tiny wrist and wrenched the weapon away. She felt no pain, nothing but cold, as her life pooled around her feet–but Fighter, her _shifu_ who she loved more than she hated, had taught her Kung Fu and never giving up. However easy it was to die, a hero could never stop fighting.

"I'm sorry…" Sarah whispered.

She stared into Amy Noble's fearless, hateful blue eyes, then brought down her Killing Fist. She covered the NC woman's body with her own as she collapsed, in a silenced and futile embrace.

-0-

"I was a Shadowrunner, but I will not vanish in the Shadows today, I will not run. I swear I will fight with you to the death–death for these Humanis mad-dog fraggers we're putting _down_, today! Don't fear their howling. Hold to your posts. Look out for your chummers! Fight your damnedest, _now_, or there'll be nothing but death and shame after today–_today_ is the gate we have to hold for Redding, with the chummers we have! I'm fragging glad you're with me, all of you."

Even before the shots from Tomas' falling gun, Hotspur, Paladin and Anya had ordered every Defender to their posts. All had gone, without confusion or hesitating. Redding militiamen, Calfree mercs, metas from Colma and the Valley. Some untrained, some unbloodied, some untrusted–but every one had trusted _them_, and gone to give for Redding's tomorrow whatever today demanded. It was an unbelievable moment, through the storm of fears in Harry's heart.

He'd given his speech in pieces and bits, while leading the section that rushed all civilians to the cellar. Dragging one nurse who'd gone into shock, hearing the NCs' cries and guns so close around. Hrafna carried another woman and prayed to Racoon as she ran, with Pup loping close at her heels.

Selene had seized her old HK G12 rifle, rushing to join Sarah and barely a dozen other Defenders at the rear door. Tomas _had_ to be there too, even if he wasn't answering comms. Anya couldn't raise Casper in his church-tower hide, either, or two of three lookout posts. She'd confirmed Susan's team were still hopelessly cut off.

Angel had raced with a marksman squad on the top floor. Paladin and Arai led the rest to the front–rolling out blast-shields, throwing down tables, smashing out windowpanes with their gun barrels. Within a minute, the storm of fire had risen on both sides. Men and women, orks, dwarves and trolls, sprayed bullets over windowsills and sandbags. Until ears rang and jaws ached with gritting.

Hotspur rushed forward–grabbed Ilsa's waist as they nearly collided–into the dull but biting smell of blood. Bullets punched brick walls until the building shook–and _then_ they felt the bell-cupola blowing up overhead. The hall was no bunker; a few missiles would level it.

_"Anya!"_ Hotspur called into his comm, over the havoc, "Find the missiles, RPGs, send cam feeds to the marksmen and Ilsa. _Angel!_ Take the heavies out or pin them down!"

_"Shall be so, boss."_ Anya's digital voice shook with feeling.

"_No hey pedo_, _comandante!"_

Upstairs, Angel already had a missile-hefter's cropped red hair in his Remington's sights. He'd never liked killing women–but he recalled what these men still meant to do with Gabriela, his elf lady. Angel's finger twitched and blew out the red head in less than a moment. The merc snipers near him, with an ork hunter from Colma and two North Calfree woodsmen, kept up a deadly fire.

Ilsa threw a Flamestrike across the square. She ducked back under the window as Harry dropped down beside her, still commanding.

"–nobody _think_ about slinging RPGs back at the city! _Anya!_ Send a Shelter in Place to every comm in Redding. Tell all the patrols in the city to hold fast, protect the people. We can handle these fraggers with what we've got! _Ilsa!_ Firewall?"

"It would not stop RPGs." Ilsa flicked through cam feeds with one hand and conjured fresh Watcher spirits with the other, "I need command of every summoner in the building, _now_."

Hotspur made the call. Before the remaining NC heavies could break from cover, Anya and Ilsa had located them all. A flight of fire and nature spirits burst out like living missiles. NC shamans desperately worked banishments, but the targets were sniped, scorched or jinxed into firing wild. Under the clamour, Ilsa and Hotspur shared a more-than-comradely grin.

"Hey, that drek with you and Paladin, and Arai? Doesn't seem to matter so much, right now…?"

"_Seems_, Hotspur. Nothing matters more than this battle, this heroic moment–except everything that comes after it."

Ilsa slung another Flamestrike. Paladin was grimly aiming burst-fire through the next window, with no time for meaningful glances, beside a dwarf and a human volunteer firing AK-97s. Behind, a troll fired from a blast-shield's cover over their heads. One of Anya's drones had been smashed by an NC sniper already; her surviving Sundowner was still plunking out shells with a steady and wordless vengeful frenzy.

Arai and two mercs were squatting on their other side, professionally staggering their reloads. Hotspur knew exactly how Arai had to feel about Takahashi, caught on the other side of the hall when shooting had started, but Arai seemed only stoic. Even as a hostile Flamestrike blasted the merc next to him–the man flopped down black and screaming, as medics on hands and knees scuttled in.

Hotspur had already directed his squad to act as medics and ammo runners, with a few to guard the cellar. A grizzled ork from Colma pounded in, dumped a crate of AK mags, then thrust more Ares ammo from his jacket at Paladin.

"I'm sorry for this." Paladin snapped in the mag and fired as he spoke, "We told you this place would be safe."

"Guess that's why the drekheads want to wreck it. Always the way. Ach, hope springs eternal?"

Hotspur's attention was arrested by sudden howl of tyres. A Bulldog van, at speed that meant a rigger, not a driver, was hurtling onto the square. But the square was covered with anti-ramming bollards, thanks to _Tomas_–frag it, he owed that ork a drink–

Then the van screeched to a stop, and NC gunmen brawled at the prisoners inside to get out. They stumbled onto the square, hands bound. Most of them human woman, from the Valley farmlands, every one of them ragged, beaten and death-eyed.

The machine guns in front of City Hall fell silent. A man in shining armour stood up, sword raised high, brought it down. The NCs grimly rolled forward behind their human shields, firing as they advanced.

_"Angel!"_

A wall of smoke bombs burst before the NCs. What couldn't be seen, couldn't be sniped–before he could switch for a thermal sight, Angel knew it would be too late. He screamed out tortures and blasphemies.

"…Astral." Hotspur stared out through the black clouds, at yellow flickers of terror and hellish blazes of bloodlust, _"ILSA__–!"_

Her Fireball was already bursting in the NCs' back ranks. Almost every spirit they could summon had been spent–all of the rest now went howling through the smoke, blasting down flame. Attackers screamed out as they fell. The hindmost dropped back, laying down covering fire that even struck their own hostages. But it wasn't enough; sweating in their body armour, roaring through their blood, the NCs were closing–

_"__–HOTSPUR! STUN GRENADES!"_ Anya screamed in his ear.

Her drone had already launched its full volley of Renraku flash-bangs; Harry had one and instantly threw it. The few human shields left were shoved down with NC rifle butts, as the attackers–to close for the machine guns–broke into a final charge with one savage roar.

A towering earth spirit rose at their head, roaring protection over the rushing, sweating gunmen. Paladin and Arai saw the red veins of eyes, but autofire dashed off of Stoneskins and Force Shields. Alison, the little NC shaman, had almost burnt her spirit out with Healing and protective spells. Ilsa saw her aura blazing, sickly but pure, with the cause she truly thought just. Arai fired on her, as Ilsa threw magic–but it all burst vainly on Ork Slayer's armour, as he scooped the fainting shaman up.

Ilsa finally threw up a flamewall and darted back from the window. The machine gunners were scrambling through windows, from their sandbagged nests, in the half-second they had to reach new cover. _Hotspur_ was screaming to them–FALL BACK!–everyone was retreating. Except for Hotspur himself, sword drawn, with Arai and Paladin, _her David_, at his right and left. Before the doors, as the huge earth spirit swept aside the flames and smashed them down. Combat boots poured into Redding City Hall; over sandbags, into windows, through the gap.

-0-

At the battle of Kohima–Arai recalled, as a smartlinked twitch set his gun to full auto–men had traded machine-gun fire literally from opposite sides of a tennis court. The British had disbelieved that anything human could have lived in the trenches that Japanese soldiers had fought from. War, like love, made man sometimes a god and sometimes a beast. He was a soldier and war laughed at his strength–but there was no shame in a soldier's death. No longer for his nation and her gods, but for this fragile cause that such a different band of comrades stood ready to die for. Nothing but his rifle, and his eye. His love held his life, and for love's sake he welcomed death in his heart.

His Nissan Optimum roared fire up at the earth spirit's craggy face. Its underbarrel shotgun drowned out shattering doors, and booming feet. Paladin poured bullets against the spirit's right side–and it burst with a noise of clashing rocks, fist still upraised. Hotspur leapt through its fading dust, slashed up, down and across–a rifle flew away with spurts of blood, the first three NCs through the door were down.

Arai was smiling. Paladin grinned like a madman as bullets flew wild round his head. An NC was hefting a grenade within his vision, he shot the man dead. In a righteous cause, in the sight of God, before the woman he loved and could never be with again…how could man die better?

Forcing their way through fire, beating at each other with rifle butts, the NCs came on firing–but brokenly enough that the Defenders had time to fall back. One man stumbled and was shot on the ground, a dwarf struggling to drag back a wounded ork was shot with her…Ilsa and the others reached the shelter of doorways, desks and blast shields at the back of the foyer. Bullets ripped through Arai's side; he swiftly fell back with Hotspur and Paladin.

The attackers were circling Ilsa's firewall, piling through side-windows. A militiaman lobbed a short-fuse grenade, hard and fast, but Ork Slayer was faster.

Sprinting ahead of his men, he snatched the grenade in mid-air. Threw it back at the doorway. Ilsa flung herself into the floor, though it would be useless. Wishing she'd looked up instead, one more time, into Paladin's eyes…

A troll from Colma surged up, pushing a merc back. The blast tore across his chest and the arm that shielded his face. He fell, but it took a lot to kill trolls; he'd had the luck he deserved. Ilsa's head was ringing, against the cold floor, as AK bullets filled the doorway beside her.

Hotspur had already charged at Ork Slayer, sword raised. But another earth spirit roared up between them–and NCs gathered at the windows were already firing on him. Hotspur darted back across the foyer, diving into cover with blood down his leg. Paladin and Arai had backed up already, firing all the way.

From opposite side of a foyer little wider than a tennis court, the furious NCs and desperate, bloodied Defenders dug in. Firing blind with only a weapon stuck out of cover, smartlink or none; flinging grenades and bearing the blasts until eardrums bled. Cordite greyed the air, walls battered from head to foot seemed ready to burst. The din alone would have maddened a poor soul–but every struggler had surely been mad as long as Calfree itself, to come to this room in hell.

Then Ork Slayer charged–leaping up the _stairs_, from the lobby to the upper floor. Bursting open a door and vanishing, with the half-dozen minions who'd rushed after. Hotspur didn't get it at first–and Ilsa was busy blasting the earth spirit off Paladin–but within a second, he did. Once the marksman squad were silenced, all the NCs who'd fallen back from the charge could come on. They'd be overrun without mercy; Harry saw in savage eyes and spit-filled snarls that the lucky ones would die first.

That was if–as five huge, roaring NCs with bats and machetes charged the Defenders, and Ilsa's Fireball burst on adept Ki-shields–they hadn't been overrun already.

-0-

A bullet punching at his helmet-mask was Ork Slayer's immediate welcome to the second-floor landing. It would have stunned any lesser man, but he was an adept–milspec kelvar, mystic armour and even his shaman's wardings rendered him nigh invincible. He still flicked up his sword in the path of another shot, dashing it away, to show his strength.

The angel-faced gunslinger kept twin Rugers blazing from his fists, down the landing. A cursing NC woman thrust her rifle past Ork Slayer and answered fire. The Runner ducked back through a door.

Floorboards groaned like tortured souls, as Ork Slayer stepped slowly down the passage. He stopped by a small side door, suddenly thrust his sword through. The NCs all heard Angel Florez cry, saw the blooded sword, heard a body fall. Little Alison Blanche quietly shivered like a mouse in a vice.

"If that spineless trog told the truth, to spare his vile _family_, the traitors' Matrix and comms centre is that way. Jessup, Yancy–guard this junction. Brown and Blanche, Dominguez, Peters and Blake–follow me."

(Alison thought of the abducted families. The human shields, the _children_…soulless monsters that could only grow to be killers, drug-dealers, rapists…but saving the world could be so hard)

"Peters was shot in the head, chief, on the stairs. We'd never have made it without Alison's magic." This from Jane Brown, the brunette NC rigger-decker; novahot champion of their mission to flood the Net with truth. Her headset buzzed urgently, "…no! Noble's unit are down. We need to clear this floor, our comrades outside–!"

"Calm yourself. A trace of mercy, unneedful thought, a moment's delay–mean death in battle. Follow me."

Jane and Alison submissively followed their idol of strength. With a little more uncertainty, the gunmen also obeyed their orders.

Striding into the Comms hub at Ork Slayer's command, Jane swiftly sat before a cyberdeck and jacked in. Within the Matrix, a claw of blue light instantly gripped her face…her body spasmed, blood poured from eyes and ears.

"Hm." Ork Slayer turned from Jane's twitching meat, "The broadcast will necessarily be by radio alone, then. Dominguez, Blake. Set up the traitors' radio installation for a national broadcast, on every frequency. Their execrable propaganda was a dagger in our side; turning their greatest weapon against them will be gratifying."

Gunfire from the foyer rose over the silence. Both NCs waited for the other to speak.

"…C-chief? Maybe _after_ we won this fragging fight?"

"Such ignorance. I need only proclaim my victory in this battle to end it! When all California hears that we have gained control here–that righteous purity has triumphed over damnable MIXTURE!–then Humanity will rise up from Redding to Los Angeles. Every filthy trog will hang from every lamppost. All the megacorp moneymen and bloated, elf-loving statesmen who have _raped_ this beautiful country since her very birth will perish for it. Tir and the NAN will be swept away. Redding will be ours. This shall be the triumph of humanity; our dawn of salvation. You are traitors to that dawn, by every moment you hesitate."

It was the longest speech either man had heard their leader give; they'd followed him unquestioningly, after all, to the beautiful brutality they loved. And now to death–now they aimed their guns together at the madman who killed them both before a trigger was touched.

Ork Slayer stepped over the bodies and saw to the broadcast equipment himself. Alison sunk to her knees, shut her eyes, and mercifully prayed for their false souls. Her devoted spirit was truly precious–Ork Slayer had time to reflect–and she, not the trog-polluted Noble, would worthily bear his children soon. Distasteful as it would be, he needed a means to drive on the slaughter of trogs even beyond his death.

-0-

As a berserker adept went for him, huge blonde beard trailing spit–Hotspur sheathed his sword. Back-kicked under the brute's descending club and into the midriff, then rolled back. He had to get to the upper floor and help Angel, right now.

"ILSA!"

A Haste spell instantly flooded his stiffening limbs with light. She'd seen him pointing _up_, she'd understood–even with _four_ berserkers charging to geek the mage, before Arai's sword slashed out and Paladin came on with cyberspur and fists–she'd trusted he had a plan. Without ever seeing the Wallrunning he'd mastered through those beautiful months with Susan…in a world where he'd never met Susan, chip truth, he'd have made one voluptuous redhead a satisfied woman. Her trust was one more of a thousand reasons he could not fail.

The roaring berserker came on again, but the attacker was shielding him from NC bullets, for a second. Hotspur took one breath, focused his ki, then leapt away. Martial Defence slid his body low between three bullets, among perhaps six hundred–but then he was leaping onto the wall, rushing round low to the ceiling–the gunfire almost slackened from pure astonishment. Then he ducked behind the stairs, clinging with all power to their underside. Flipped end-on-end over the rail, onto the landing. Caught breath, threw his shoulder into the door–

–and bounced off. The little NC shaman had warded it shut, after her hero had passed.

A torrent of gunfire instantly lashed up at Hotspur, stood without cover on the stairs. Ilsa threw up a desperate flamewall, but the NCs didn't need to aim. No escape but the window on the landing–and getting through it faster than two-dozen shots was the most desperate moment of Harry's life.

Hanging from the ledge outside, by his one arm without a bullet in it, Harry had no time to consider that he was fragged, fagged and slotted. All he could do, before a gunman picked him off, was focus every scrap of Ki in his good arm. Fling his whole body up and round, smash feet first _through the next window along_, crash down in the landing _on the warded door's far side._

Then whip his Browning up with Hasted speed–firing on the stunned NC gunmen down the passage, as he threw his body flat against the wall.

Two dead NCs. _Seven_ shots. Emptying his gun at adept speed was the only way he'd ever hit anything…but, chip truth, hadn't he got to be kind of a badass shadowrunner?

Croaking laughter was bloody agony. He kicked in an office door, sank down, and swiftly slapped a medkit onto his arm. Breathed out–then shot away from the wall, as the straight-sword blade stabbed through at his back.

-0-

His katana, trusty as a brother of steel through so many fights, flashed from his back to shine before his eyes. He rushed side-on into the hall, into the spinning thrust of the fragger in the mask. He dashed the sword aside, dodged the armoured knee-strike–clashed blades one-handed and flung a Killing Fist against that iron grille of shadows. He smelt blood on iron, but the straight-sword was free. He leapt back–blood soaking his headband redder than red–crouching low and breathing hard, like a tiger in a pit. His knuckles were bloody pulp; he'd almost broken his hand.

Ork Slayer stood stance-less, erect and impervious as a dragon of iron. Hotspur needed no astral vision to sense the holocausts of hate blazing red from steel-masked eyes. Senseless, insatiable, unending.

"Hotspur. The pissant boy whose idiocy gave a good human woman to the monsters. A plaything to torment, corrupt and break to the roots of her spirit…such a foolish waste. Every morning when she looks on your face, doesn't she feel how you failed her?"

"SHE LOVES ME! YOU DICKLESS FRAGGER! SHE IS STRONG! She's a hero, she's worth ten thousand sorry monsters–!"

"Worth a better man than you, Hotspur? You come from the selfish, childish games called shadowruns, and the brothel-beds of Hong Kong. To face a devoted life. A stronger man. Whatever I am, I will be the saviour of Calfree tomorrow and you will be nothing. None more worthless than the fool who fights, fails, dies. The world will strive to forget your shameful existence; bury remembrance of a foolish boy who dreamt he was a hero."

"Tomorrow, if I die, my wife will beat you like a drum. Think about that–unless you're too scared of death to even face the though. I have a hundred chummers who'll geek you tomorrow if I fall, and they'll finish everything worthwhile I ever did–in this place! This whole city will resist you to the death. Humans, orks and elves. Builders, healers, soldiers, they will kick you out of Redding again, and they'll face the Tir stronger than you can dream! Susan will lead them…or else we'll die together today…now, why the frag I should fear death? I'm just angry that the peak of my street-rep, the best thing I might ever do, is going to be geeking a pitiful piece of drek."

Serpent-fast, Ork Slayer lunged. Hotspur felt the huge strength of the blow that would've _shattered_ him, as he slid aside and stabbed overarm. No openings in Kevlar and steel, except the mask-grille. His point scraped flesh, but the mask flew back. The straight sword came up and clashed again. Sent his feet, even buttressed with Ki, scraping back along the ground

Monstrous strength. Speed like his, and Haste was wearing off–armour that might even shatter his katana if he struck home, and a hideous implacable will. Even the corridor favoured a straight stabbing sword over the katana. If their blades slipped out of lock for a moment, one blow would finish everything.

Hunting goblins through pitch black caverns in Canton would always be the worst fight of his life though, he somehow knew. It would have been much worse, if both Douglas and Owens hadn't firmly told him; close spaces called for different weapons.

Hand flashing from his sword hilt to Ork Slayer's wrist, he fell straight backward. Kicked up to fling the armoured warrior over his head, with a crash like apocalypse. The Slayer came up too fast, slashed down. hammered down Hotspur's one-handed block to cut his shoulder to the bone.

But his off-hand was on the combat knife that had rested in his boot for years, to kill cave goblins and viler monsters. He aimed at the armour joint where leg met groin and stabbed up with all his strength.

Ork Slayer staggered back with a groan, stamping and slashing. Hotspur rolled back and leapt up, even with his knife lost and an arm hanging limp.

"BLANCHE!" Ork Slayer roared for his healer. Hotspur knew he would be dead if that tiny blonde weighed in. He swiftly backed up, sword held out, as Ork Slayer came on with burning eyes.

In the comms centre, Alison Blanche was lain out on the floor. The bloodied shell of what had been Jane Brown stood over her, datajack still trailing. An ork-like growl from her lips;

"My name's Anya Kotto, fragger. Your kind killed my Kenji, _killed my people_–!"

Redding gunmen filled the passage behind Ork Slayer now, but their shots struck armour vainly. The NC chieftain charged on Hotspur without a word. Nothing could have captured his fury; almost nothing could have been deadlier than an adept set on death.

An steel glove caught the katana; the sword sunk in Hotspur's abs. He had to drive a Ki-filled kick into his enemy's groin wound. Dash the sword down in a gout of his own blood. Then drive his katana–as if slamming his wrists against steel, screaming through the blow as it finally drove home–through mask, head and helmet. All his focus and his power, with his life pooling round his feet.

It seemed nearly everything worthwhile in his life, he'd done with his guts threatening to spill over his boots. Not the best time, perhaps, for heroic deeds, but the essential one. Hatred had made Ork Slayer one tough fragger, steel-souled…but had Sharon Fawkes' dumb kid walked through all those bullets for nothing but pride? For _Susan_, his great love–burning up with his life–but wasn't love even bigger than that…?

Pulling Harry up from the bloody floor, Takahashi swiftly deployed another medkit; without his Heal, Harry's blazing two-handed thrust would have been scotched by his shoulder-wound. He and Angel's marksman squad had figured that they'd no chance against Ork Slayer on their own. They'd already stabilised the sword-stabbed Angel himself, for the Docwagons that were on their way.

On the lower floor, the Defenders gazed through smoke and ringing silence at the scattered bodies. Over their own dead, the devastation of City Hall. To the City outside–filled with the terror and death that they'd sworn to defend it from.

Harry hadn't learnt about the Tet offensive at any school he'd never set foot in, but Ilsa, Arai and Paladin were all thinking of it. The 'beaten' Vietcong had all but wiped themselves out one huge suicide offensive, but the shock alone had broken the old U.S. past recovery. From the pure spite that been all his vision, Ork Slayer would gladly have died to break the spirit of Redding.

A light broke through the blood in Harry's eyes. Flashing on the radio set. He hauled himself up, staggered through the bodies, and flopped bloodily onto a chair. He took a half-minute to gather his voice, then spoke to the whole of Calfree. His chummers, who'd tried to hold him back, fell silent.

"…_together_. All of us united…nothing in this world of drek will ever defeat us. The so-called Native Californians hurt us today. They said they opposed Tir Tairngire–but what they did has done nothing but aid the Tir. Aid the war Tir Taingire has begun already, to take our homes from us by terror and force. Chip truth, though–we're not moving from this city. Give us your strength and skills, your nyuyen and your guns–give everything for your dreams, chummers, it's the only way to fly! Humans and orks, elves, trolls and dwarves, together; we'll build stronger, we'll do whatever it takes, we will fight this war that Tir began, to the end. Together, we can make our home, your Calfree, a place–_agh!_–a place worthy of our chummers who gave their lives for it today. Hotspur, Redding's Defenders. Stay arctic, Calfree. Stay free."

"–_frag._ Tell me someone fragging recorded that–!"

"–the whole country just heard you say that, drekhead–!"

Hotspur switched the broadcast off and settled back in his chair to bleed, as Anya uploaded audio and video across the Matrix with blazing alacrity. The Tir Peace Force Matrix division were swinging into hostile action already.

-0-

The NCs who'd covered the frontal assault, from the edge of the square, now watched Selene lead the Defenders who'd destroyed Noble's rear attack to strengthen the ravaged foyer. The attackers were mown down where they stood or as they ran, and the supporting gunmen were turning to flee themselves. When two armoured vans shot around, crashed into the curb, and disgorged a terrifyingly beautiful woman with a yellow scarf and iron spikes on both fists. Followed by about two-dozen gunmen of all metatypes, a grim black elf wielding a shotgun and SMG, and an Emperor who took off running, through all of the gunmen without fear, to the hall full of dying fighters he might still possibly save.

Norton didn't perceive Fighter flying into the stunned skinheads on his left, the killers who had threatened her husband and her home. Bone-shards crunched under her flying kick–her boots smashed through two more bodies, one hand touched the floor–feet flashed out to kill and kill again. Rage mightier than her muscles, flying through the monsters' drekky bodies. On Norton's right side, Elorn efficiently shot down several NCs. Bummer and Lazarus pulled down others, running beside their master. Hailey and the militiamen chose to spread out with medkits and reassurance through the city. Massacring of the convicted hate-cultists who'd attacked Defenders and defenceless without mercy, and would've done nothing more with freedom than murder metahuman children, didn't require their help.

Fighter was chill with that. She told herself, stamping down on the last thug's neck, that all the deluded fools and conscripts had surely run from the NCs, or been murdered by them, before Ork Slayer had gathered his fanatics for this stab from hell's heart.

Two survivors of Noble's unit had actually made it back the south lookout post, holing up with the bodies of Tomas, his brother, and the sentries they'd killed. After a harrowing wait to take every monster with them that they could, black smoke suddenly poured through the building. Filled with wet-fur stenches and terrifying shapes. Both thugs stumbled out, one even dropping his rifle. Will Casper shot him through the knee and his comrade in the head, cold as clay pigeons.

The last NC had meant to scream humanity's defiance at the stump-legged rat, and the trog cowards behind it. That died in his throat as he saw Casper's very good friends, Bummer and Lazarus, at his sides. Fire in their eyes, spit in their jaws.

"Survival of t' fittest. Law of t' jungle. Weren't that thy game, tha bastard? Go on, boys."

The big NC man beat the hellhounds off for a minute, until a jaw crunched down through his forearm. Even the gathered orks who knew Tomas was dead turned away from his screams, but not Casper.

Then a pretty young ork with a bandaged head surged past him, shaking with terror but shouting _bad dogs_. Hrafna shot the NC thug through the head, with a Browning left on the battlefield. The eyes she turned on Casper and the orks with him were furious and hard.

"Law of the fragging jungle? Nature red in tooth and claw doesn't torture helpless fraggers, for terror, revenge and hate! Not even humans are that dumb–it takes toxic evil. Kill to protect your chummers and your families, like the bear, the wolf and the boar, but never do what you know is wrong, just 'cos this drekky little fragger tells you to do it!"

Casper was lost for words. He'd never seen the young shaman who'd been scarred and left for dead by the NCs as anything but weak. Now he thought that he had never seen dewdrops lit with sunrise, or a kestrel flashing over childhood rooftops, that looked so beautiful as Hrafna did.

Old City Hall was smoke-black, filled with shattered glass, and scarred with bullets and missiles. The Defenders picked through the bodies scattered over the square, for the human shield prisoners who had fallen stunned or feigning death. Most of them had survived, and might recover, including the abducted families of the dead sentries. All the NC bodies, including Ork Slayer and Amy Noble, were hauled out of town and hidden in a pit; the same burial they'd planned for every metahuman in Calfree. Norton, Paladin, Alison Blanche, and Sarah for Noble's sake, went out alone to speak a short prayer. The worst of the Native Californians had been humans, not monsters.

Alison, almost the only surviving NC (She had been at Ork Slayer's side two bloody years; she was sixteen), had a long talk with Paladin. She told him she would give her life to God, trusted in his atonement, and sincerely hoped she was never released from prison. Susan hugged her, wept into her golden hair, and promised to message her weekly.

The twenty Defenders who had been killed in the three lookout posts and the assault on City Hall were buried together. Tomas' cousins, his old militia and his surviving brother Rick all got howling drunk with Harry. Rick, a quiet ork before the murder of both his brothers, sat in a silence worse than the grave. Sarah, still limping and weak from wounds, but still alive, touched the lid of the coffin very tenderly.

Through his headache, Harry told the tremendous crowd everything he had known of Tomas, everything they'd all known and loved. Arai gave the Kohima epitaph, When You Go Home, laconic as ever. Even Norton could say only a little about life from death and greater love. Twenty chummers had died who would absolutely rather have lived. All they could do was to be there for them, as the rifles cracked, and soil thumped down on hardwood.

-0-

Before that–almost as the last shot was fired–people had come slowly to City Hall from every part of Redding, first in knots and then in drifts. To seek healing and safety, to see if their fathers, brothers and sisters were dead or alive. To gaze on the scarred but standing hall; _there_, Sarah Rosenblum had killed the NC captain. From _that _spot, Hotspur had made his leap. They would tell the fresh volunteers who would trek freely now from all Calfree to Redding, answering Harry's call. They would tell their children, so long as the coming assault of the Tir Ghosts and Peace Force left even one of them alive.

Almost at once they began to rebuild. Higher fences, stronger walls; windows and gaping holes filled. The blast-stains and smell of death scrubbed away by the hundreds who simply turned up to do what they could. As soon as he could stand, Harry was directing the recovery. Twelve sleepless hours later he collapsed again; everyone firmly told the hero of the day to slot off and rest.

The moment had passed when it all rested on him. Norton was striding everywhere, organising with astonishing coherence and rousing every spirit. Elorn was clearing up blood and brick-dust unstintingly as anyone, almost the only elf among the Defenders–freely and wordlessly accepted. A lot had changed, since they'd come to Redding. Had to change, in the time they had left.

(Bob Reeder, the troll who'd blocked a frag grenade, was already back on his feet and showing off his scars to the hundreds of parties who wanted to hear about his narrow escape. Arai had intercepted Ilsa and inquired; hadn't she thought of mind-controlled an NC gunman into shooting their own hostages?

Ilsa responded that it would have been a risky but possible means to avoid the stigma of Redding's Defenders shooting helpless civilians; however she had not had the spell prepared. Arai mentioned that Saito's Imperial Marines had invariably shelled any school or home where the MPA had hidden, to teach the futility of such cowardly tactics. Not that the metas had learnt, before he'd left 'Frisco. He'd personally considered just shooting through the human shield, and it might have saved a few lives-but Paladin would have stopped him, and Takahashi wouldn't have forgiven him either.

As Arai strolled pensively away, and Paladin forced his way through the crowds towards Ilsa, the mage realised that she had somehow been forgiven.)

Susan had already crashed out, staggering back to the hotel room she and Harry rented–several times, they'd even spent the night there. As he wearily checked in with the wide-eyed teenage clerk, Harry wondering what Paladin and Ilsa were doing by now. He could faintly hear what Angel and his Gabriela were up to on the floor above. The desperate moaned-out vows of 'still-alive' sex…sounded all too familiar.

Susan's clothes were distributed between the bed and the shower. She woke with a mewing noise as he stumbled in, rolled onto her back with a brave, beautiful smile. Tired as she was, reached out a hand to him and patted the bed beside her.

Harry slumped down in a chair, threw his sword down, and tried to smile.

"We're wrecked, angel. In the morning–"

"Mm…wha' you done with my husband?"

"…what about you, Susan?" He didn't meet her smile, "You… massacred ten spent, beaten men in the middle of Redding. We didn't fortify City Hall enough; we didn't stop a small army before they were right on our doorstep. They went after our peoples' families…! You know Tomas is dead?"

"I know. I'm sorry. I know he was your chummer. I'm sorry. But we're both still–"

"Please don't say it. You know he was married? His wife walked out ages ago; he spent too many weekends with his tiny militia, training to protect Redding from the Tir. He would joke about it all, but…he's dead. He gave his all for this city, his chummers, _us_. He was my chummer and he's fragging _dead_…!"

Harry pressed his fists against his face, silently heaving. Susan couldn't move from the bed. She could feel Harry wanted nothing from her but silence, because nothing right now would do any good.

"…we've lost people before." Harry gasped, a long time later, "Still fragging hurts, I fragging knew it would…this is war. We could lose everyone, when the Tir come, frag it…and we'll probably still be alive to see them dead. Why do we always live, and our chummers die–you feel the same thing, don't you, love? They call us heroes when we practically fragging killed them."

"…Harry, I know what you mean. You feel like if you were dead and Tomas alive, it'd be better. For Sandra, Enrica, Iraj, I felt that, but I _couldn't_ from the day we got married. Speeding back from the dam, hearing it all on comms, I was so scared I'd see you dead. I'd have fought them, Harry, killed every fragger I could. But when I went down, I wouldn't have ever got up again…I couldn't go on without you, and they would have taken me. You know how the NCs used rape. To destroy their own people's humanity, to tear down strength, hope, will, everything in here…like all those poor women, like I can't ever forget. The men I killed would have killed you, Harry; they would've left me alive without you for rape. I will geek anyone in the world to get back safe to your side, my husband. I think I could bear any loss, every pain, so long you're alive and with me. I've been weeping with broken families and all our chummers for hours. We'll weep together again tomorrow, but all I can do right now is _need_ you, my love."

"…am I meant to be scared? Well, I'm fragging scared. You beautiful monster."

Susan rolled off the bed, went to Harry on her hands and knees. Draped her body over his legs where he sat, still shining with little drops from the shower. She looked like some exotic temple dancer at the feet of Conan the Barbarian, though only the grim set of Harry's jaw particularly resembled the Governator.

"I'm sorry, love. We could have lost everyone _today_, Harry–but you fought and won. Maybe no one else could have done it. Nobody else can do the things you do. You feel so much for your chummers, even the ones we lose, I love that in you even as it hurts…but it must not kill you. Even you can't save the ones we've lost, my hero, only the living. You told me you held a gun to your head, after Hong Kong–never again, Harry, don't even look down that path! Not even if I'm killed, or raped, I could _almost_ bear it I didn't know you'd turn on yourself…I think I wouldn't fear death even a bit, if I knew you would live."

"…angel." Harry's fingers were bound in her hair, his eyes wide but resolute, "I promise you, for your sake…I will never kill myself. I was afraid for you too, I'm such an idiot, I'd rather die than see you dead, or…hurt…but I promise. Whatever happens. Can you promise, angel, if anything happens to me…just to live? If you won't be able to rise, don't get knocked down–hang up your gloves if you have to. Just live on, strong and beautiful as this."

"…Harry, martial arts are my life. What am I, if I don't fight?"

"So much. So, so fragging much, babe." His fingers massaged down her neck; her eyelids dropped with a gentle sigh.

"I promise…I'll try to live. I'll never stop trying. And I'll never be with another man, until we find each other in some future life. You ruined me like that, tiger…there's nothing in this world we're in like the bond between us. Live and love, even without me…I won't haunt you or anything if you sleep with Ilsa. I think you'd both like that."

"Ah, er, um…_Paladin_…?"

"I was meddling there, wasn't it? And it didn't work out…he still wants her to get married and quit shadowrunning, and he knows she doesn't. Don't get big-headed about it or anything, but you were right about that. You get good ideas _sometimes_. Hey, I might have mentioned your ultimate threesome fantasy to Ilsa…"

"_What?_ The one you almost smacked my head off over?"

"Yeah, of course I was ticked off then, but for you and Ilsa I'd actually be down for it. She said stuff like that tends to get twisted up, though, and she'd deal with her own crazy life."

Harry knew he couldn't win. Susan would do exactly as she thought right, and he loved her for it. He stroked her hair in silence; tried to face the pain that had never stopped howling through him, for her sake.

He would never share a drink with Tomas again; never face the Tir beside him at all. Tomas would never be the next mayor of Redding, never come out with another speech or idea worthy of no less, and never light up his eyes with laughter whenever Harry told him so. He shouldn't have died, it hurt like frag. That was it.

Friendship and love in the Shadows were fatal as Scylla's jaws, but Harry had been doomed from the start. He was a shadowrunner, and the drive behind every mad, heroic or idiot thing he had ever done–he had never seen it more clearly–was the heart of a fatherless white human boy in a metahuman slum. The dream of saving the world, the desperate need to be loved.

Had shadowrunning really been the best way to reach those goals, or just the one he saw on the trids? What else could he possibly do…?

"Susan…practically everyone in this city knows us. Not just our names…they've forgiven us a hundred frag-ups, trusted us to defend their city in every way. We know them…I think that makes Redding our home. I really will do whatever it takes to protect that."

"You finally get it, dummy," A teasing eye flicked up, "This was never just another shadowrun."

"I mean, we could stay here for good. Face off the Tir, somehow…Susan, if we settle down, you could work with survivors, teach martial arts to orphans…Susan, they'd be like your kids!"

Susan's eyes rolled up towards Harry's face, like colliding planets. But he couldn't read her thoughts and he was talking rather than trying.

"We shouldn't bring another poor kid into this drekky world. I shouldn't, I couldn't. You weren't sure about it either, right? But you'd make a wonderful mother, Susan. You'd put any dumb kid on the right path! You'd love teaching them Kung Fu. All of them would love you. Baby, don't I get amazing ideas, sometimes?"

Susan adored Harry's grin so much, she couldn't tell him. She _thought_ she wanted her own child, and his. He would be as good a father as a man, she knew it; but if she spoke, he would not understand.

She could only lead him gently to bed and fall asleep in his arms. Harry whispered, with a sound like a sob, that he loved her, would not leave her, was glad to be alive.


End file.
